


And If Your Wings Are Broken

by theoceanpath



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Adventure, Alternate History, Canon Compliant, Gen, Genetic Engineering, Historical References, References to Depression, References to Folklore and Mythology, The lonely road from Vancouver to Pyeongchang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:27:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 45
Words: 90,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21646003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoceanpath/pseuds/theoceanpath
Summary: "Yuzuru Hanyu has clones," people say at the end of the 2018 Olympic season. "He's an alien. He has wings. He never ages. He is not human."Javier Fernandez bites his tongue and snorts, watching his cat tear up the newspaper as the rest of the world speculates.
Relationships: Javier Fernández & Yuzuru Hanyu
Comments: 115
Kudos: 27





	1. Prologue

_A thousand leagues above_  
_A thousand more below_  
_Lake meets sky in the bosom of the mountains_  
  
_A fairy dance_  
_A swan alights_  
_Death floats gently on a bed of ice_  
  
_Splendor beyond despair_  
_Watch not, want not_  
_Or be swallowed by darkness._


	2. Starlight Is Indelible - [I]

**_Hands, put your empty hands in mine_ **  
**_And scars, show me all the scars you hide_ **  
**_And hey, if your wings are broken_ **  
**_Please take mine so yours can open too..._ **

**_~Rachel Platten_ **

* * *

_Autumn, 2008_

[Haru]

He crashes to the earth like a starburned Romeo, wringing the last dregs of moonlight from grief-reddened eyes. His legs croak with odes to lost feathers. His back is hunched from the memory of scraping traces of bloodied diamond snow from his face.

They called him their nightingale once.

The unseen concerto stops playing, bringing silver-gilded footsteps to a halt. It's cold enough to scream, but the only ones who can hear are busy checking for broken bones on the light-spangled floor of the rink. They're loud and wild, armed with more enthusiasm than skill, trading shoulder claps and high-fives in their quest to cover the ice with ugly loop marks.

His would have been better. His would have been _perfect._

One of them glides by and it is then that he notices the red and yellow striped emblems scorched into the fabric. The Spanish skater laughs, a harmony of temple bells and car horns and crinkles in his eyes.

He glances at the clock. He has less than an hour before the bodyguards take him back to the lab. But he wants to watch just a little longer, so he digs his fingers into his palms with all his remaining strength and tries his best to block out the sound of lightning crackling through his veins.

Haru focuses instead on that mop of curly, unkempt hair. Terrible skating skills, sluggish moves on the ice. He looks either drunk or half-asleep. Maybe both.

Then the boy jumps. It's a huge, powerful quad and he lands it with ease.

And then steps out of a triple Axel.

Haru frowns. He _loves_ that jump. It's the most perfect of all jumps. Failing an Axel is sacrilege.

Haru skates around— thirty more minutes, he still has time— gaining momentum in heartbeats, then hurls himself into the air, three point five rotations and…and…falls.

The slap of palms on ice whispers between the boards like a fluttering white flag. An agonized groan escapes his lips, long and tired and heavy with the weight of a crumbling world. He can't fly anymore. He can't jump anymore. And now he's falling apart.

"Are you alright?"

It's the Spanish skater, the one with the pretty Salchow, the owner of the most genuine smile he's encountered in months.

Haru is unsure whether to answer _yes,_ nod, or keep silent. In the end he gets back on his feet, brushes traces of winter off his pants, and just stares.

"My name's Javi."

"Habi," he repeats. It doesn't sound quite right, and he tries again. "Javi."

"I'm from Madrid," his new acquaintance introduces himself, pointing to the letters sewn into his jacket like a secret code. "And you? What's your name?"

Summer is closing in on him. Already a mob of needles is busy attacking his feet.

"Haru," he blurts out, his voice starting to shut down. "Call me Haru."

"Nice to meet you, Haru!" Javi says, just as the tips of his snowcurdled fingers begin to disappear.

A spasm shoots down his knees, and that's it. Summer's over. He exhales a thorn-rimmed snowflake with iridescent wings that splits in three before it dies.

_Time's up._

"I have to go." It's a trembling, tiny sound.

He leaves the rink. Every step is a struggle; his breaths come in loud pants, his eyelids almost dead with exhaustion. His voice is too weak now to say goodbye, and he can't even manage a grimace as his body folds into itself. The last thing he sees before losing consciousness is a flash of a broken down rink in Sendai, where metal-edged boots scrape by with the shrillness of expired violin strings.

And then there are strong hands lifting him up as the floor turns to smoke and fades away.


	3. II

[Javi]

When he was younger, Javi's parents gifted him with a rainbow colored parakeet. It was beautiful, too beautiful for this world even, his father would tell him. The next week he woke up to find a cold mass of skin and feathers on the floor of the cage.

He remembers that bird when he sees the skater leap and fall, fierce and tragic, the bravest colors of daybreak burning into his irises. He tries again before giving up and blessing the ice with sweeping crescents, etching multi-layered flower petals in the path of his spins.

Javi searches out his own tracks, the product of unrefined edgework scattered like chaff in a cotton field. It's mere novice level in comparison to the distinct, gypsy-like elegance of the latest visitor to Morozov's newly rented rink. Maybe Haru is a national champion? He's far too skilled to be just the next addition to their camp.

Haru exits the rink in a hurry, and a string of Russian curses sends Javi back to work. The season of his dreams is just around the corner; he's scheduled for a flight to America next week and his coach wants him to get in shape. He'll do anything to make it to Vancouver, even if it means spending another couple hundred months in another training camp on the opposite end of this freakishly enormous country where no amount of outrageous talent could ever compensate for the lack of comforting Madrilenian sunshine. If all goes well and he lands his quads, he might even get another autograph from his idol along the way.

* * *

Unfortunately for Javi, the path to glory is paved with panic attacks and doctor's visits.

"Don't be nervous. It's going to be okay," says his mom. Except his mother doesn't have blond hair. He blinks and a Russian lady is watching him with stone grey eyes.

"You hallucinated again this week. Your daydreams are quite vivid and frequent," the psychiatrist reads off his file. "You've been dissociating."

This is great, terribly great — he hasn't even been here a full month and now he has another incident to add to his expanding list of depression-related symptoms. Perhaps this is fate's way of telling him to find a new sport after the Olympics.

At last she finishes talking, and Javi gets another shiny set of pills for his collection.

He stares at the bottle. This is what skating did to him. This is his reward for a stupid, delirious, impossible dream.

* * *

It's cold tonight, cold on his lungs and ribs, and colder still when he leaves the doctor's office. It's going to be one long ride back home. He takes the elevator down to the creams and grays of the hospital lobby and passes by a patient on a wheelchair with a nurse on either side. It's the skater boy. For a moment Javi forgets why he's here in the first place.

"Hey," he whispers, when the boy's companions are distracted. "Haru? What happened? Are you okay—"

Haru stares at him. His eyeballs are soulless and the robotic twist of his neck and slow-motion tilt of his head send chills down Javi's spine. He does not speak until the nurses push the wheelchair down the hall.

Javi turns around and sees a swarm of violet butterflies alighting on a girl's hair. A cherry blossom blows into his shoulder, lifted by glowing ant feet. He crushes the pack of medicine in his pocket, gripping it so tight that the bottle leaves candy cane stripes on his palm.

The butterflies slam into the wall and get stuck. Javi opens the creaky glass door and stumbles, feeling drugged.

He wonders, not for the first time, why he's been so nauseous recently. Perhaps it's just another symptom of homesickness. Life in the senior circuit has not been kind to him; he misses soccer and Raya and rest of the gang. And certain days, he walks from his flat to the rink in an underwater tunnel filled with jellyfish and mermaids and sharks.

Sometimes Javi hates the ice for luring him to this Siberian hell. Usually he just hates his life, and at times like these accidentally cracking his skull on the concrete water floor doesn't seem like such a terrible way to disappear.


	4. III

_Spring, 2009_

[Haru]

"Yu-tsuru," someone calls. He hates it when they do. _Yutsuru. The tied crane._ What a beautiful, cruel name.

The room flutters in monochrome. Machines decorate its corners, tubes and cables snake across like preserved intestines, thick and long enough to make a rope bridge stretching across a rink.

His body broke down again.

The men in white coats come and go with their notes and syringes. Someone pushes a wheeled table full of vials.

He knows what's in those things. _Drugs._

Strange how medicines for mortals work on him when he is anything but that.

"Winter's over," one of them says. "Time to get up, fairy boy."

A bolt of electricity zaps through his system, jolting Haru awake.

"You collapsed by the ice. It's been six months since then," the doctor of machines and madness informs him.

And presses a button.

And electrocutes him again.

He hates this.

"I'm going to the rink," he informs— no, _pleads_ with them when the electrotherapy session is over.

"No."

Haru vanishes.

The researcher taps his fingers on the chair. "Don't waste your energy; I know you're still strapped to the bed."

He's right. Haru's just regained consciousness and six months of stasis have sapped all his strength. Reluctantly, the spring fairy returns to visible form again.

"Just let me skate."

A heavy sigh. "If you crash, no one's coming to fix you."

This is cruel.

_What do moths do when they lose their wings?_

They become earthbound, and that is the saddest, scariest thing ever.

_And what happens to moths when they find their missing wings?_

The gray-haired scientist asks him these riddles often, as though wings were detachable. As though your identity could be worn and taken off and replaced at will.

"Humans are weak. That is the truth of our existence. We grow old and die, and no one remembers us. But you are different."

Haru hates this speech.

"Yu-tsuru, you are not like them. They can work themselves to death for all the medals they wish. Every year there are hundreds preparing to take their place." He moves. The edge of the bed dips with the added weight. "So do not waste your time on a useless sport like that. You will only destroy yourself further."

_But I want to fly._

Haru thinks back to that once upon a time when his wings hadn't broken down and he wasn't depending on a team of scalpel-wielding mortals to survive. Now he can only jump toeloops and Salchows and Lutzes and flips, chasing that elusive freedom for a few seconds before gravity forces him back to the ground.

Time has always been his nemesis, and there is no end to his resentment for the six months his body shuts down to regenerate itself, but even gravity bears a grudge against him now.

"The others like me— were they failures too?"

The response Haru gets is clipped and resentful. "I was a fool to go to Japan. It was a waste of time and resources and a mistake I cannot afford to make again."

Haru holds back a whimper. He is not a mistake. He can't be. Or else—

He closes his eyes and tries not to think about it.

If he fails, they'll throw him away.

* * *

The frost dungeons of winter have melted and now he is free to roam the world again. He has all the rinks of Moscow as his playground, and he busies himself searching for those specific skaters training for upcoming regional competitions. The last strands of his hair reconstruct themselves just in time to witness a certain Javier Fernandez collapse on the ice. On a step sequence, no less.

All the enthusiasm Haru noticed that one day half a year ago is gone; there is a dullness to his skating from the light in his eyes to the edges of his blades. He does a slow, poorly-centered spin, then a series of clumsy moves on one foot before stumbling again.

It's a pitiful sight. No coach approaches him and no fellow skater is willing to lend him a hand.

Enough is enough. Haru decides to intervene.

Solid wax threads knit his butterfly-thin armor together. Color suffuses his skin, rebuilding the textures of flesh and bone, hair and muscle until his corporeal form breaches the ether in full human glory. Wide, wide eyes greet him when he reveals himself to the unsuspecting boy gracelessly sprawled on his back.

"I'll help you," he volunteers, more out of pure exasperation than anything else. How can someone with such a marvelous jump also possess some of the most horrifying skating skills in the circuit?

"Haru," groans Javi, lifting a hand to rub at his eyelids. "I knew it! I'm going crazy, right? Ugh. I really should go see the doctor."

"Javi doesn't need a doctor. Javi needs to fix his skating," he says, sounding a bit harsher than he intended. It's been a long time since his last interaction with humans, after all.

"Are you volunteering to be my substitute coach?" Javi asks, incredulous at the sight of someone materializing from the crystalline dents left by his toepicks.

"I can help with your Axel."

Haru leaves out the fact that he hasn't landed a single triple Axel since the other year. He hasn't landed a proper triple jump since the beginning of last year, and that frustrates him almost as much as no longer being able to fly.

"Oh great," says Javi. "I could use that. Wanna help me up?" he asks, bracing himself against the ice.

Haru reaches for Javi's hand and hauls him to his feet. A touch of human warmth spreads to his fingers, lingering for one, two, three, counts and drifting away with the fog of his breath.

"So? Ready for your first lesson?"


	5. IV

[Javi]

Javier was fifteen when he first heard about the yuki-onna, pale lady of snowstorms and soul-leaching breaths. If such a creature were real, it would probably be this mysterious boy. Haru's palms are cold. Snow cold. Ice cold. His smile is tight and forced. Javi wonders what he can do to fix that.

"I saw you at the rink before. You're amazing. I'd love to have you teach me," he says, accepting Haru's offer without further ado. "I'm from Madrid, I like soccer and tennis and I'm here to train for the Olympics. And you? Are you from around here?"

"No," he replies as Javi takes a second to catch his breath. "I live— _lived_ in Fu— in Japan."

"Cool. So, your parents moved to Russia?"

Haru frowns slightly. "I don't have parents."

Javi blinks. "Are you here because your coach invited you?

"I don't have a coach either."

"A relative? New school?"

"None, but they let me skate in this rink when I have nothing else to do."

Javi glances around. For once he actually came ahead of everyone else, and nobody's staring in their direction, so it's probably safe to assume no one noticed Haru's sudden appearance.

"Can you really turn invisible?" he whispers.

Haru grins innocently and disappears.

"Okay. Okay. That's it. I've lost it. I'm going to the—"

"I thought you wanted to skate with me," says the invisible boy, who is not invisible anymore.

 _Wow. Wow. Whoaw._ Is he a _superhero?_ Is he a fairy? He reminds Javi of magnolias and lotus flowers as he twirls around in that special shade of artificial dawn that feels like springtime in the frigid catacombs of the rink.

"Come on," Haru invites him with the widest smile in the whole Antarctic. Which is none at all.

The music starts. Javi's heart goes into overdrive in the deadends of his chest. A fierce glint lights up Haru's eyes like some kestrel honing in on its target midflight. He stomps his expensive-looking boots impatiently, forcing snowflakes into the air.

"Let's skate," he says, and there goes Javi's weekend.

* * *

The good news is that his Russian coach won't be around for three weeks. The other coaches leave Javi to his own devices, and instead of chugging aimlessly through the daily routine, he signs up for an impromptu skating class taught by someone whose mission in life is to give him a heart attack by changing direction every few seconds and doing stag leaps, high-kicks, and twizzles out of single Axels at a moment's whim. They don't mind Haru's presence in the rink, although more than once he catches them staring in awe whenever the boy feels the urge to test-taste the ice.

"I like Javi's Salchow," remarks Haru. "Loop is good too. But your other jumps…hmm…I wonder why the Lutz hates Javi so much."

"That's cause the Lutz isn't Spanish," is Javi's brilliant excuse that only serves to infuriate his companion.

"The Axel isn't Japanese either."

In the end, they agree to postpone jump practice in favor of paying much needed attention to his other skills. "Let's work on your spins," Haru suggests at the beginning of his second week as unofficial coach _(slash training partner slash boot camp instructor)._

"I hate spinning!" complains Javi. "Jumps are way better."

"Javi," he warns, clearly exasperated _again._

"Alright, I get it. You need spins to make it to the Olympics. Gonna work on them now," Javi acquiesces with a sigh.

Haru nods, and then frowns again because Javi is not as flexible as he ought to be.

_No, Haru, not everyone can do a Biellman, sorry. No, Haru, twisting myself into a donut isn't good for my spine. No, Haru, there's a reason I don't do laybacks._

Haru is so curious, he asks too many questions, and he talks so much, and… and…

And it's not too cold here anymore.

"Javi?"

"Yes, Haru?" he groans, while attempting another brain-discombobulating spin that only repeated chants of _I love skating, I love skating, I love skating, I love skating_ give him the strength to do.

"What's the Olympics?"


	6. V

[Haru]

The _Olympics_ sounds as exciting as a sky-race across the mountains. He used to love those, until his companions stopped showing up and his wings began to fail him.

He misses flying. He misses the times he could follow river paths all the way to the sea. He remembers visiting those hidden places in Japan where dancers would dress up in bird costumes and tap their feet on the ice. He tries some of those tribal dances too; he teaches Javi a few steps but the result is nowhere near what Haru expects.

"I have two left feet and my arms aren't on speaking terms with them," the Spanish skater shrugs.

Haru lets out a long exhale. "Let's go back to your choreo. Last season's program can be improved if you just…"

Javi chooses that exact moment to exit a butterfly jump on his butt.

Haru finds himself frowning again.

"Artistry is built on the foundation of good technique," he reminds Javi when the latter attempts to humor his way through the parts that send him tripping on his feet. "There's a lot you have to work on if you're aiming for the Olympics."

"Says someone who only found out _yesterday_ what the Olympics even is."

"It's a contest, isn't it? I've joined those lots of times too."

Javi looks incredulous. "Fairies have competitions?"

Haru pouts. "I'm not."

"Not what?"

"Not a fairy."

"Well then, how can you turn invisible? And why doesn't the cold affect you? What _are_ you, Haru? Are you even human?"

"Yutsuru," he murmurs under his breath. Such an ugly, terrible word.

"What did you say, Haru?" Javi gasps, having just survived a combination spin.

"No, Javi. My name isn't Haru," he informs the struggling Spaniard with a quick shake of his head. _"Haru Yo Koi_ is what people say when the temperature gets too cold and they start wishing for spring."

"You mean it's like a nickname?"

"Yes."

"So your real name is…?"

"Yutsuru."

"Yusuru," Javi repeats, careful to pronounce it but it still sounds strange in his accent. "Great name."

"It's not," Haru says. "It's _terrible."_

"You don't like it?"

"I _hate_ it."

The venom in his own voice surprises him. "Just call me Haru, please? _Please,_ Javi?" He is not that caged bird, not that trussed-up crane, not anymore.

"Okay, _Haru,"_ Javi agrees, and his lips quiver for a moment like he wishes to ask more, but he swallows and smiles instead.

"And no teasing."

"I wasn't going to tease you! When do I ever tease you—"

"Thanks, Javi." He feels his lips curve into a smile, and it's been too long since he last caught himself doing that.

Skating with Javi was a great idea after all. Poor skating skills or not, he's been nothing but a good, good friend so far.

"Hey, Haru! Wanna race me across the rink? First one to make it to the other end wins! And three—two—go!" Javi scrambles forward, taking Haru by surprise, giggling like a madman and earning a shake of the head from the others in the rink.

"Wait! That's cheating!"

Haru wins of course. Javi gets snow all over his back.

* * *

The streets of Moscow glitter like a flash-frozen Atlantis the next morning, rich with ancient secrets and an eerie regal beauty that reminds him of Japan. It should be spring now but an unexpected cold spell lingers, as if winter refuses to give way to the next season and is still fighting valiantly to keep its death grip on the earth.

"I don't remember offering to be your tour guide," Javi comments, drawing the collar of his jacket tighter around his neck. His usual smile is contorted into a grimace from being forced to walk the snow-encrusted alleys at dawn. No doubt he'd rather be snuggling into his pillows now, but a promise is a promise, and Javi's made a few of them lately.

"But Javi," he whines, the way people on TV whine, "we made a bet, remember?"

"And I won, didn't I?"

"No you didn't. The last one was under."

"Oh, come on! How could you expect me to land four perfect quad salchows in one minute? That's inhuman!"

"A deal is a deal. You should have thought of that before agreeing," he rebukes his trainee, sticking his tongue out for maximum effect.

The next few minutes pass in near silence. Haru hums a children's song he heard over the radio, leaving Javi to grumble on his own, crossing his arms in what appears to be an effort to ward off frostbite. Must be the weather; it's probably too cold for humans to be out.

Strange. Haru feels just fine.

"Are you okay, Javi? Maybe we should light a bonfire here in the street," he suggests playfully, and Javi … Javi looks irritated now.

Haru sweeps his gaze through the pieces of history before them. Stone towers wedge themselves into the grey-tinged skyline, and a perched goshawk shaves off thin dustings of white like icing over candy turrets. Is it really _that_ cold?

"Javi—"

"Don't you feel it at all? Haru, it's freezing!" his companion snaps. "Just because the cold doesn't affect you doesn't mean I'm not dying over here!"

There's this thing about Javi: he's never going to lose his temper unless he's truly mad. And when he's mad, well, he's _mad._ All because he lost an extra hour of sleep.

Humans are such complicated creatures. Haru never has problems with sleep schedules in the lab; why does Javi always have to stumble in groggy and late for everything?

"And you never did tell me what sort of creature you are, did you?" Javi presses on. "You're not a fairy, right? So what are you? A magician? Do you have wings? Are you one of those supernatural beings in the stories who fly away when they find their missing clothes?"

He pauses. More snow falls.

Javi sighs. "I think I hate snow. But that would be stupid."

"I'm not a fairy," Haru explains as they resume walking toward Javi's favorite food place. "I don't have wings... anymore. No one stole my clothes."

"Then what are you?" Javi asks. Curiosity mellows his initial outburst, and Haru drops the idea of avoiding this conversation with half-truths like he did with others before. Javi deserves better.

So Haru tells him.

"I said I'm not a fairy," he replies, yet his words are barely audible, even to himself. He knows he's not supposed to do this, not supposed to reveal the code of his existence to anyone outside the research team, but Javi isn't just anyone, and he once said that true coaching relationships are built on trust.

 _Trust._ He can do that.

He finds his voice again. "Let's go, Javi. I'll explain when we get there."


	7. VI

[Javi]

In a quaint old breakfast shop where roughly hewn wood chairs pair off under assymetrical rafters, waves of steam rise from twin bowls of soup, lending back heat to Javi's face as he breathes in the aroma of freshly cooked herbs.

This warmth brings back memories. Bruised knees from falling off the bike, swimming pool fights, a barbeque grill in the backyard, neighborhood soccer games after class, scarab beetles in a jar and other wild things he used to bring home in his younger days.

 _"Let them go, Javi. They need to be free,"_ his mother would chide him.

He never listened.

Because what sort of childhood is complete without accidentally murdering a cricket or two?

He stabs at his empty bowl with his … custom-made ... _chopsticks?_ Wait, he wasn't even halfway through —this isn't—

"Hey, Haru! That's mine!"

Haru's response is to quickly gulp down the rest of Javi's breakfast, and then politely return the now empty bowl to him.

"Thank you for the meal!"

"Ugh. You little thief!" he shakes his head for the umpteenth time. What in fifty universes was he thinking when he struck a deal with this cheeky brat?

Oh right. The _Olympics._

A bell chimes; someone pushes the door open and a blast of the chilly outdoors flies into their faces. Javi sneezes. Haru takes another sip of the warm broth, relishing the irony of him despising the cold his blades need to survive.

He pinches the bridge of his nose. "So? You said you were going to tell me what sort of mysterious magical creature you are."

"It's not magic," Haru corrects him.

"Uh-huh."

"I was able to fly before."

"Okay."

"But I can't anymore."

"You can still turn invisible," Javi points out.

"As long as the power source works."

"Power source? You mean a battery? Like a robot?"

"No." Haru wrinkles his nose. "I'm not a robot."

"Let me get this straight. You're not a robot, you're not a fairy, and you're not human. Are you an _alien_ then?" Javi humors him.

Haru giggles. "Yes, I'm an alien! I'm from outer space!"

"You live in a different planet?"

"Yes! It's Planet Haru!" the boy nods furiously and Javi simply chuckles along.

_You're not telling me, are you?_

_Is this some top secret government spy project?_

_Are you a mutant from the lab sewer?_

Okay, that one was weird.

A wriggle of ramen gets stuck on Haru's hair. Javi yanks it off. Haru inspects the tiny piece and pops it between his teeth.

_Oh, well._

_Forget it._

Haru is Haru, whatever that means. He'll get a headache trying to figure this out.

Haru is his friend, and that is enough.

"So, Coach Haru, from Planet Haru in another galaxy, the only alien in the whole universe who knows how to skate, would you mind if I visit your homebase sometime?"

Haru laughs even harder and accidentally spills ramen all over the table. Javi shakes his head and orders another bowl.

* * *

Human or not, staying cooped up with a team of scientists all day doesn't sound healthy. Haru seems eager to learn as much as he can about life back in Spain, so Javi spends the rest of the morning telling stories of his weird, wild childhood while touring him around the city.

They pass by bookstores and craft supplies centers on their way to the donut stand. Javi buys enough for three people— who knew someone as slender as Haru could have the appetite of a monster— leaving him to marvel at the carved bird figurines smiling from the window.

"What happens to moths when they find their wings?" Haru casually asks while munching on his second strawberry-glazed treat.

"They fly away?" Javi guesses, wiping off bits of cheese from the corner of his mouth.

"Try again."

"They become pretty?"

"Yes, like a spider's web."

Javi takes him to the sports gallery, and Haru takes his time ogling the fitness machines on display.

"Are you buying something?" Haru inquires after Javi spends more than half an hour comparing price tags of soccer equipment.

"No," Javi assures him. The stuff here is too expensive and he doesn't have anyone to play soccer with after all.

"Nothing? Really?"

"Instant noodles."

"You came to a sports outlet to buy noodles?"

Javi sighs. He grabs a bright orange sneaker from the rack and shoves it at Haru's chest. "Here, you pay for this."

Haru does not pay for it. He puts the shoe back with a grimace and makes a beeline for a stall selling plushies. Before Javi can say a word, there's a plump yellow stuffed toy in his arms and a boy bouncing up and down in irrepressible excitement.

"Pooh!" Haru whines, like a child in the world's biggest candy store, and there goes Javi's allowance.

"Pooh-san is so cute."

Javi glares at the bead eyes, the little honey pot, the red shirt with the tiny Disney logo tucked in the corner. _Yeah. Cute._

His bank account is grieving. Later he'll hold a funeral for his stomach. But yes, how _very cute_ indeed. 

"Javi!" Haru calls to him, waving Pooh-san's ears and giggling and this is exactly why Javi wishes he hadn't been stupid enough to fall in love with such an expensive and obscure sport.

_Lunch or plushie, lunch or plushie, lunch or plushie…_

"Javi?"

Plushie.

_Hello, instant noodles. I did not miss you._

He hands in the money over the soundtrack of his wallet's tears and grabs baby Pooh's arm. He turns to leave, but then Haru points to some kind of bracelet hanging on the wall of the novelty store.

"I think I like—"

Javi groans. At this rate, he'll be chewing moonlight for supper.

_Dear future sponsors, where are you? Hope we get to meet as soon as possible. Like maybe tomorrow._

_Love, Javi_

Yuzu finishes bouncing around the stalls with a little trinket in hand and the saddest puppy eyes he has ever seen. Javi takes a deep breath, murmuring a five-second eulogy for all the coins left in his pocket, and accepts the receipt like an apology letter. And then he drags Haru far, far away.

* * *

They go to practice right after. Haru carves himself into the rink like rivulets coursing down the mountains, weaving gorgeous spins and twizzles and spread eagles. Ever the fighter, he rushes into jumps with a fearlessness that says _I was born to land this._

(Even if he doesn't.)

 _Splat,_ he goes, with an endearingly frustrated pout.

"Go Haru!" Javi cheers, doing three Russian splits and flopping on his stomach.

Haru shows off his spiral. Javi flicks a handful of shaved ice at his face.

"Javiii!" the boy shrieks.

Javi attempts to glide away and stumbles, distracted by the fractals clinging to Haru's shoulder blades in mimicry of feathers. And when planes of sunlight strike his back, Javi can almost see a silhouette of glittered wings.

Practice ends with an awkward hug. They make a promise to meet everyday. Haru always arrives too early. Javi always comes too late.

Little by little, Javi's footwork gets better. He's at least eighty percent sure he won't fall on his butt the next time he does a flying entry to a spin. His quad toeloop improves to the point that he plans to add it to his free program next season. It helps that Haru has a knack for noticing details, such as when Javi's leg position is a few degrees off, or the times he enters the facility feeling more gloomy than usual. It's getting hard to imagine training without the presence of the boy-magical-human-alien creature.

"They're not as incredible as they could be," he shrugs off Haru's praise for his Sal-toeloop combo. "I still have a long way to go before I'm ready for Vancouver."

"Try some more. The next ones should be better."

And of course this means Haru intends to make Javi do quads and axels for the next few hours or until he breaks his foot.

_No way. No, no way._

This calls for a time out.

"Hey, shouldn't you be going somewhere? Hanging out with someone else?"

Haru side-eyes him suspiciously. "You just want a day off. And who else would I hang out with? You're the only one I—"

"Bye! Have fun, Haru!" Javi pushes him towards the entrance. "See you in Canada!"

Haru shakes him off and scoots away with an offended look, leaving Javi cackling to himself.


	8. VII

[Haru]

Haru's shoes tap a good afternoon to sleeping white marble. There is no one to greet him from the steel and plastic angles.

The team in the lab are busy working on their latest project. _Endymion,_ they call it. Beloved of the moon, prince of the cold light.

Haru gazes at the blond cherub's face behind the glass. One day, he knows, this creature will replace him. This model is an upgrade from the last, and its wings will be permanent, and maybe it will survive when his own body does not.

Fake snow drapes its bleach coat over the hallways. Down he goes, _tip-tap-tap._ The door to his room swings shut.

Now it's just him and his reflection in the window. His limbs have broken and fully repaired themselves; save for the deep indents between his shoulder blades where his prototype wings were severed, he is the embodiment of youth in its prime. The perfect failure, trapped in a mayfly lifetime of eternal seventeen until he is no more.

He closes his eyes.

_What do moths do when they lose their wings?_

_"Maybe they glue tiny paper kites to their backs,"_ Javi had said.

But Javi doesn't know the truth. And Javi has many, _many_ long years to find out.

 _"The butterfly whose steps never touch the earth must find a sprig of kindness to alight on, and, should it be denied this chance, will inevitably fall,_ " says the prologue to the hardcover on his desk. The blueprints in the third section read like ancient poetry. There's a page dedicated to damaged tailfins somewhere.

 _Icarus never died_ , the book claims. Icarus never _lived._

Icarus is young forever, and tragic. Forever a dreamer, forever a mistake.

He stares at his wrinkleless fingers.

He thinks of Javi. He thinks of trains and airplanes and the skaters at the rink. He thinks clocks are humankind's cruelest invention.

 _Morning alarms are evil_ , Javi had said once with a playful sneer, and Haru couldn't help but laugh at the suggestion to start a revolution against clockmakers wordwide.

It's almost hilarious how the Spanish skater hates timepieces as much as he does. He hates their restless hands. He hates their leather chains.

In truth, the same rulebook guides their existence. The same desires, the same hopes, the same sorrows. It occurs to him that maybe humans are not very strange creatures after all.


	9. VIII

[Javi]

"How 'bout we do that pair buttspin again, Haru?" Javi shouts across the far end of the rink, glowing with the knowledge that he has never truly shared the ice with someone the way he did today, sweat pouring from their foreheads, clawing down Javi's training gear and embracing Haru like the phosphorescent sea. For Javi he has always been a half-breed of human and myth, but in this moment, he is alive and solid, a wild burst of fireworks and peach auroras. Haru stumbles and suddenly the universe condenses itself into sprays of shaved ice and warm laughter.

Haru gets up and reaches for the sky beyond the gray ceiling, letting the fog of his breath ghost over his face, his ears, his hair. His feet speed up. Figure-eights, all perfect, eyes fluttering shut as the breeze he generates trails through his outspread fingers, a wordless _hello_ in a language mortals know not how to speak.

The moment passes. Javi blinks.

"What's wrong, Javi?" asks Haru, brow raised, finally pirouetting to a stop.

Javi shakes his head. He tackles Haru without warning and proceeds to tickle him.

"Javi?" Haru asks in a very puzzled, very calm tone.

 _Crap._ Turns out pressure points don't work with non-human entities. Neck, back, ribs, stomach— _nothing._

Haru sticks his tongue out, a gesture he's picked up from the kids in the rink. Javi gives up, scoots to the boards and throws him a towel. He makes quick use of it, spiking his hair into whiptails, putting the jellyfish lights in his skin to rest.

"So," Javi asks, after a long gulp of his lemon flavored energy drink that, regretfully, tastes _nothing_ like lemons and more like a concoction of the worst medicines he's ever had in his life— "what's your next move, Haru? One hundred revolutions? A triple Axel so high that you fly out the window?"

"Nope. Just thiiis!" Haru squeals, surprising Javi as he attempts a triple— no, a _quad_ Salchow and falls. Hard.

"Nice flight!" Javi snickers at first but his heart sinks with dread when his companion doesn't get up immediately. He hurries over, reaching out his hand to grasp Haru's gloveless fingers.

"I don't think I can jump anymore today," Haru exhales shakily as Javi helps him back up.

"Does your foot hurt?" His worry escalates to panic when Haru tries to shift weight to his right leg and fails.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Ugh, it's all my fault!"

"It isn't," Haru assures him. "The Salchow—"

"Is a mess sometimes."

"Yes. It's evil. We're not friends," Haru pouts. "The Salchow only likes Javi."

Javi scoffs.

Haru touches his ankle, twisting it gently to test for signs of injury. He doesn't wince. He looks more frustrated than anything else. Javi hopes that's a good sign.

Seconds pass. Something seems to click in Haru's mind. Positioning his leg carefully, he stands up, this time without a limp or a grimace, reminding Javi once again of his non-human status. Does he feel pain at all? Can he heal the same way?

"Maybe you should go home now?" Javi suggests. A sharp tingle pokes up his spine, the way it always does when he knows he's in trouble.

Haru plops back down and hugs his knees, doing a accurate impression of a child who had just been scolded. "I wish I could," he says cryptically, still curled up like a little lost boy and not the marvel of science and nature that he is.

Javi thinks of fields of gold and purple vineyards. He thinks of sun and soccer and oranges and sheep. He reaches down and pats Haru's shoulder in solidarity. "I wish I could too."

Haru peers at him curiously. "Why don't you?"

"I—" words choke in his throat cause there it is, the exact question that's been keeping him awake for _weeks._ He rubs at his face in frustration. "I've had this crazy dream since I was a kid. So I gotta stay." He shrugs. "And you? What keeps you here? Why haven't you moved back to Japan?"

"I can't." Haru's voice is bitter with resignation. "I wish I could go… to Fujiyama, but… I... don't know."

His face crumples into a strange expressionless sadness. Javi's certain that if fairybots could cry, there'd be tears rushing down the boy's face.

"Fujiyama? Is that where you live?"

"In Fujiyama, there are others like me. They call us guardians. We're supposed to save humanity."

Javi snorts. _"Save_ us? From what?"

"Dying. Being forgotten. Leaving this world."

Utterly ridiculous, yet Javi waits for him to continue.

"It's still too early to tell but… I don't think it's working. I'm not… _permanent."_

"Permanent?" he prods, hoping Haru will divulge more information.

He doesn't.

"What about you, Javi? What's _your_ dream?" he changes topic instead, clearly not ready to talk about this— whatever _this_ even is. Javi decides not to press him for more.

"Okay—" No consequences if he indulges himself, right? "one day I want to be an Olympic medalist," he declares, nudging Haru with his elbow. "Crazy, right?"

"But Javi can do it. You just have one weakness to defeat."

"Only one?"

"Yup."

"Let me guess... my spins? Look, I don't see how we can fix my issues with flexibility," he sheepishly scratches the back of his neck.

Haru shakes his head.

"Performance? Think I should emote more?" He schools his features into a rendition of _Les Miserables'_ captain of the guard, drawing an imaginary sword.

Haru giggles. "No, no. The problem is you always skate like you're _drunk!"_ he chastises Javi.

It's supposed to hurt. It would have, from anyone else. From Haru it only gives him ideas. "Well then, since I'm so good at it, I'll do a drunk skate at the Olympics."

Haru's brows furrow in confusion. "Skating drunk? But that's—"

"Illegal? Insane?" Javi chuckles. "It is, but I'm not going to _skate drunk._ I'm doing a _drunk skate,"_ he clarifies, and Haru's eyes widen in disbelief. "I'll show you the best drunk pirate Salchow you'll ever see!"

They laugh because the Olympics is in a few months and they have all the time in the world. The lagoon of star paths stretches on forever, and it's all he can do to drown the voice nagging at him that everything comes with a price, and it's not always you who'll be paying.

"Maybe I'll join the Olympics too," Haru muses. "We could medal together."

"Oh really? What color would you want?"

"Gold!"

Javi can't resist a chuckle. "Pretty ambitious, aren't we?"

"But I _can_ win, can't I? As long as I get my triples back, and two quads? I could get on that podium, right? We can be there together?"

"And here I thought I was the one aiming for gold," he jokes, slapping Haru on the shoulder.

Haru eyes him closely. Head to toe, mittens and loose threads of his shirt. Nods to himself. Finally, "Nope. Bronze or silver. That's your color."

He's grinning.

"Sorry to bust your hopes, but that gold medal? Is. Mine."

"I'll steal your gold."

"I'm putting it under lock and key."

"I'll snatch it before anyone notices."

"You're too special for the world not to notice, Haru," he blurts out.

 _And I'm not,_ Javi realizes. It hits him that it would take someone with skills of Haru's caliber to make it to the top. It takes someone hardworking and unusually talented, someone who stands out from the rest, someone special.

And that's… not him.

The thought is as cruel as it is swift. Before he drowns in self-pity any further, he starts the slippery trek toward the rink's entrance, biting back a crushing wave of despair. He can't give up. _Can't, can't, can't._

He swings the gate open. Haru's gaze lingers on his back.

* * *

"Perfect!" Javi bursts in excitement as he lands his third quad toe in minutes— clean. Haru's right; he _is_ getting the hang of it. Looks like a place in the Vancouver free isn't quite impossible after all.

"Hey, did you see me—" His voice falters. He scans the periphery, expecting at least one eager smile of approval and finding none.

Haru didn't come today.

Javi groans and kicks a hole into the ice. Three good quads in a row and all that earns him is a blank stare— which, he supposes, is miles better than the scowls he's been getting lately when his coach catches him talking to one of the _girls._

It's becoming increasingly hard to ignore how his coach's eyes beam proudly anywhere but in his direction. The star of the show this afternoon is some newcomer who's clearly a better skater than he is. There was one yesterday. And probably another coming tomorrow.

He runs an angry hand through his hair, trying to quell the frustration building in his chest. All he has is his jumps to fall back on. He doesn't have those spins. He doesn't have those skating skills. He doesn't have a body made of dough and rubber; he doesn't have invisible jet rockets strapped to his boots. There's progress with Haru's keen scrutiny, but one not-fairy-not-human's advice can only go so far.

"You have big jumps," one of the fitness trainers consoles him. "But as for everything else…"

Javi's fingers ball into fists.

_Everything else is a mess._

He has to prove himself. And he will. He'll make those plane tickets worth it.

He has to.


	10. IX

[Haru]

"It's final. No skating this week."

"But—"

The man in the lab coat clucks his tongue in displeasure and flicks on a switch, zooming in to a coded diagram and cross sections in grayscale. The protest dies on Haru's lips when he glimpses the image on the screen.

"Scan shows you need a week to regenerate. Sleep for seven days and no skating afterward. You're lucky I volunteered to patch you up. Chief was just about ready to dump you in the bin."

For a heartbeat, Haru's lungs don't move.

_Terminated._

Truth, when it sinks in, is ugly. They really are going to replace him.

Haru takes a gulp of air. He doesn't know why humans do this, or why some instinctive urge in him makes him try; Javi claims it helps him think, but it doesn't seem to be working.

"Will you send me away?" he asks. His voice is soft and tiny. Cold.

The doctor sets his glasses down. "Yutsuru, you know this isn't the ideal set-up. We lack resources here. At Fujiyama they can fix you. It worked with the others."

He hesitates. "Are they the same afterward?"

"Pretty much, plus an upgrade or two. Their memories don't stay, unfortunately. That's not how the brain works. If we were to remake everything from scratch it _might_ be possible. But that's not the goal here."

There's a stack of petri dishes for disinfection by the sink. A prosthetic eye on the counter. The centerpiece on one of the desks is a three dimensional model of a heart. One of the veins is bent askew and the aortic valve is in need of epoxy.

Haru paces the room, lets his fingers play with the flat steel edge of one of the rolling tables, brushes the back of his palm over spider thread specimens. He plucks one with his index finger. It snaps. His runs a nail over another. This one he can't slice apart.

"It was bound to happen sooner or later. Don't worry; they'll keep that brain of yours and just redo the rest of you. Maybe they'll stick on a tail this time."

"I don't want a tail."

"Then stop breaking every bone in your body! Maybe if you behave they'll let you have your feathers."

"But I promised I'd go to the rink. Ja— my friend will be waiting for me."

An eyebrow lifts. Suspicion. Steel eyes. Steel and azurite.

"That _acquaintance_ of yours— does he know what you are?"

"No," Haru lies through his teeth.

"Make sure he never finds out."

It's a threat, loud and clear. Although Haru doesn't think they'll disturb Javi— or worse, get him in trouble with his team, he can't be too careful. They have humanoids in their possession, and even he doesn't know all they're capable of.

He'll need to warn Javi later.

"Better say your goodbyes soon. After we take you to Fujiyama, I highly doubt you will see him again."

"What if I don't want to return to Japan? Can't I stay here? Besides, didn't you say it's illega—"

"Says their government! Those fools banned the research, they stopped the experiments, they fired us for cloning you and—"

"You _cloned_ me?" Haru whimpers.

The man sighs. "Though I am not certain if it was successful, the possibility is fairly high. Unfortunately the participant disappeared during the crackdown— probably taken to one of our partner satellites in some corner of the world—"

There's a wild gleam in the doctor's eyes. If Haru were human, he'd be shuddering.

"It's a shame the project failed." He pinches the bridge of his nose and flips through his records. "Hitler was not wrong when he talked about a superior human race."

"A superior human?"

"Yes. Not so breakable," he clarifies, flexing his biceps through his sleeves. There's barely a hint of muscle. "Utopia can never exist in this galaxy. But we can try. Even a fragment of it is better than the world we live in now.

"Ever heard of the Spanish flu? The Black Death? People dying by the million? And don't get me started on cancer. It's ridiculous. Your heart stops, you die. You get fluid in your lungs, you die. You fall off the stairs, hit your head, you're dead. That's so _weak._ With all the technology we have now someone ought to fix that. What harm is a few hundred controlled experiments compared to the hundreds of thousands dying from preventable causes every year?"

Haru tunes out the rest of the lecture. It's the same thing, every time.

Mortals die. Artificial beings _shouldn't._

He sneaks out to the rink and puts on his skates. He stares at the blurred shadows vacillating on the ice and doesn't skate at all that night.

* * *

_"Why does it rain?"_

_"Because all the butterflies decide to weep at the same time."_

_"Butterflies? Not the birds?"_

_"Birds don't cry."_

* * *

Haru gets his loop back first.

He's in the middle of back to back spread eagles when he hears the sound of a tiny breath. It smells of plum blossoms and morning mist, calling to him with feather-light steps, and he knows the time has come to go airborne once again.

He leaps. His wings, though brief, are stirring again; the thrill of sky unravels his nerves as he shoots across the rink, eyes closed and alive. He lands that jump. A familiar rush of adrenaline explodes in his chest, only fading when he sees the blur of Javi's face gaping at him with a look of astonishment that would be more fitting if a bolt of lighting torpedoed through the roof.

"Unbelievable! You… you monster!"

Haru blinks.

_A what?_

"Monster… a real monster… amazing!"

 _Monster._ He thinks of ghastly things that descend from the woods and charmed weapons piercing through the night. He remembers chants dissolving like smoke and talismans hung on doorposts. He sees _Endymion,_ a hundred _Endymions,_ steel silk and polymer molds lying asleep in glass cages.

"That was completely out of this world!" Javi exclaims, dusting snow off his training gear like purifying salts.

"Okay," Haru says in silent resolve to play human better.

So he gulps down the take-out Javi offers him, greasy potato spears and salty flakes, so different in flavor from the waterlogged noodles he's accustomed to. He lets Javi teach him to kick a ball around a hallway. He reminds Javi not to fall asleep at lunchtime.

Their mismatched friendship thrives somehow, on borrowed time and the mercy of the seasons, but just like the Olympics, he can't shake off the fear that everything's hurtling irrevocably to an end.

* * *

_"Why does it rain?"_

_"The clouds get dark because the sun burns them. It's their punishment for stealing water from the ocean."_

* * *

Afternoon finds Haru slumped against a row of trees in the town square, peeling oranges for Javi to snack on. He tosses the ball of pulp into the air and cranes his neck to gaze at the thickening cloud decoupage hovering over the city.

It makes him curious.

"Javi? If it wasn't for skating, would you have left home?"

"You mean, would I have left Spain?"

Haru nods.

"Maybe. Who knows? If it wasn't for my coach, I wouldn't have left at all."

"You're going back when you get your medal, right?"

"Of course. It's my country. That's where my friends and family are. Why, do you want to come visit Madrid?"

Haru shifts on his throne of cement, clenching and unclenching his fingers. "What if you couldn't go back? What if you had to move somewhere else for good?"

"Like Russia?"

"Yes. Like moving to Russia. Or Canada, or Japan. Permanently."

"Permanently? No. I couldn't do that."

"Even for an Olympic medal?"

"Even for all the medals in the universe. It's my home, Haru. Home and the people in it— you can't trade that for anything."

Haru begins humming again. Home for him is the cold floor of a barely surviving rink and the children sliding on it. Home is the view from the sky, the silence, the treetops during Spring. Home is people he hasn't met, a place he hasn't been to. Not something worth fighting for, he decides.

"The sky is furious," he tells Javi.

"You think so?"

"The sun doesn't look happy. Do you hear the wind? It's preparing to attack."

Javi gets up and stretches his arms. Grabbing his bag, he helps Haru to his feet, dusts off his pants, and plops a handful of seeds in the wastebasket. "What do you do when the sky gets mad?" he asks.

"Sing to it."

"What? Why?"

"So the tears will go away," says Haru, and Javi shrugs, causing an amused smile to creep up Haru's lips. "Javi is silly. The sky gets lonely too."

Javi sends him a longsuffering look. And it hits Haru right then how much he's going to miss this.

He's going to miss the way Javi always tries so hard to make sense of things from Haru's world— things he doesn't understand, but accepts anyway. Who Haru is, his origin and his dreams; Javi never treated him like anything less than a friend, and he realizes now that of all the things he'll have to give up, this is going to be the hardest.

_"We'll take you back to Tokyo, give you an overhaul. If all goes well you'll be good as new. You'll have a fresh new start, get to live your life all over again. Heaven knows I'd give anything for a time machine and a chance to do that."_

_"Can I have my wings back?"_

_"I think we can work on that."_

If he goes to Fujiyama… he can fly again. He'll be free again. But he won't see Javi. He won't _remember_ Javi.

The onyx bracelet from the mall feels tight and heavy on his wrist. He hopes when he gets there— when, not if— they'll let him keep it as a memento of his adventures. At least, if everything else is inevitably wiped out, he'll have something to hold on to.

* * *

_"Why does it rain?"_

_"Rain is flower juice for thirsty bees."_

_"Have you tried some?"_

_"Yes. It tastes like roses."_

* * *

The ticket back is scheduled in a month. He thanks the researchers for giving him a second chance.

"It's your third one!" the Chief Assistant fires back good-naturedly.

Haru nods, flashing a grateful smile for their efforts.

Then he runs off to skate.

He finds Javi waiting by the rinkside, too busy with his phone to notice him at first. It's the perfect opportunity to sneak up on him.

"Boo!" he whispers behind Javi's ear, and the startled look on his face makes disobeying his superiors worth it.

Turns out Javi's not the only one in for a surprise today. The Spanish skater winks and pirate music begins to play through the speakers.

"So what do you think? Time to drop everything, sneak into a shipyard and set sail for the end of the world? Har-harrrgghhh!" roars Javi, this time brandishing a prop sword and— is that— eyeliner?

"You'll poke the judges' eyes with that!" Haru mock protests.

"Maybe if I do they'll give me higher scores! Who knows, maybe I'll even beat Plushenko!" He slings an arm around Haru's shoulder and affectionately tousles his hair. "You will watch me skate, right?"

Will he? Vancouver seems so distant all of a sudden. Come February next year, he'll be in Japan, he won't be himself anymore, he won't recognize Javi…

Javi gives his arm a squeeze. "Right?"

Haru flinches. There has to be another option. He can't let his friend down. He doesn't want to go, not now, not yet.

He looks into Javi's eyes, clear and focused. No room to hesitate.

"I will. I promise."

Javi exhales in relief and pats him on the back.

There's a string of budding sakuras in Haru's pocket and he crushes it in his fist. His gaze hardens with determination.

Summer isn't over yet. He still has all the time in the world.

* * *

_"Why does it rain?"_

_"Javi. It just does."_


	11. X

[Javi]

_"I know you'll make us proud, Son."_

A set of engines came to life in the world outside the glass as he was pulled into the tightest embrace, his father's arms around his quivering frame, his father's kiss on his cheeks, and it dawned on him that this would be the last time, his last chance to see them for months or who knows how much longer. His sister snapped each moment into something tangible and real, reminding everyone to smile, and his mother was too busy hugging him to wipe tears from her eyes. A few more fractions of an overworked clock before they said goodbye, and then the spinning of propellers filled his ears, and all he had left was his hand carry, pulling courage out of thin air to grip the straps to himself, taking comfort in their roughness as he squeezed himself into the plane bound for New Jersey.

That was a year ago.

Now he's homesick, quad-equipped, and fighting for a spot in Vancouver. His first Olympics, hopefully not his last, hopefully not a flop.

_I'll do my best, Pa._

Javi crosses his legs and leans back on the vintage cushioned chair in his apartment— no couch this time— halfway through his seventh viewing of Pirates of the Caribbean. He knows Jack Sparrow's lines by heart now, knows that swagger, even catches himself doing it when the steps off the bus. _This_ is what he's bringing to Canada, to the greatest stage in the world. Not even the defending champion Plushenko would attempt something like that.

The soundtrack is sublime. Morozov took one glance at the title scrawled on scratch paper and frowned. Two days later he was demonstrating the choreography.

And it was great. It was fun. It was perfect.

And Morozov laughed.

"You're a natural, Fernandez. But quit the booze before you throw up on the judges!" he remarked as Javi stumbled around the rink.

Until the girls showed up and his coach began fuming at him again. Suddenly everything was wrong, everything was ugly, everything was _not enough._

It took all his strength not to punch the boards.

Now he sits before his tiny T.V., meditating on Jack Sparrow's beard and the braids in his hair and how the dark circles around his eyes call attention to his genius.

His phone rings.

A call from Spain.

The voice on the other end is a bit too cheery for his present mood. "Do you hear the people sing?" he's asked, instead of the standard _hello._

Javi fumbles for the remote and presses the wrong button. The screen revolts. "Say what? Who's singing?"

"When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the—"

Javi grimaces. Great, now his friend is quoting musicals to prank him.

"Raya?"

"Heyyy, Javi! Long time no see! How are your quads doing?" the other Javier replies, proving that he has not, in fact, lost his mind.

Javi slumps back and a tired exhale fills the air. "Not too bad."

"And your spins?"

"Not…terrible," he moans into the mic.

"No broken bones yet?"

"Probably."

_"Probably?"_

Javi sighs, long and deep and utterly miserable. "I wish I had another coach," he confides to Raya over the phone. "Morozov is… he's not a bad coach. But he's strict. Some days it's okay but sometimes he's just _terrifying."_

He wishes he could tell Raya everything. _The stress is so bad I'm seeing giraffes on the rooftops. I've skated with an elephant. My apartment has a UFO siphoning water from the sink._

But he can't. If Raya knows, everyone knows. He can't let his parents find out he's drawing soccer balls to preserve his sanity. The most important event of his lifetime is coming up in less than a year and all he's mastered is the art of bathroom breakdowns and perpetual sadness.

_Not now. Not yet. Hold on, Javi._

"It's that bad, huh?" Raya says after thirty heartbeats of silence.

Javi tosses his console on the bed. "He hates me, I swear. He hates me when I'm doing well, he hates me when I'm not; he hates me when the girls are clapping, he hates me when I'm late, he probably hates me in his sleep!"

"But if you're set on going to the Olympics, you can't switch coaches now, right?"

"Ughhhh," he groans, giving voice to some of that pent up frustration. "I'm not thinking straight. Free coaching from one of the best coaches in the world, an ice rink I don't have to share with hockey players, actual competitive skaters for rink mates— what else could I possibly ask for? Sticking with him is the only option if I want to make it anywhere."

"But you don't like it there."

"I—" Another sigh. "I don't hate it. I just miss you guys. The whole gang, everything, everyone." He pauses to reconsider. "Am I complaining too much?"

There's silence on the line for several moments.

"You know you can always come home if it becomes too hard for you. There's probably at least one or two coaches here who could use another student."

"No, I worked so hard for this and I— I'm here already, I can't just… _leave."_

Because that would make him a coward.

He's already a failure. No need to add another offense to the list.

"I don't know. But I have to try," he finishes, hoping their years of friendship and shared love of toothed metal blades will make Raya understand.

"Take care of yourself," Raya says.

Javi stares at the outline of his reflection on the screen. It looks like a ghost.

"You too," he answers quickly, before his voice cracks.

He hangs up and stares at the thumbnail of Raya. A few more clicks take him to Laura, to his neighborhood soccer team, to the beach. There ought to be some technology to magnify these things to full size. He could really use a hologram of his Mom right now.

There aren't enough pictures. He reaches the last one. It's his sister in a skating costume, and he remembers why he tries.

He supposes he is faring better than the other Javier. There is progress; he's going to learn a new quad combo. He's going to make a name for himself in the circuit. He's going to befriend Plushenko. He…

He's… exhausted.

The new environment is sapping his strength. Hackensack was better. He at least had a Spanish coach to room with, at least had the comfort of a familiar tongue to quell his homesickness.

And now?

Now he bribes the bathroom mirror. He says _one year more_ and _hang on_ and _you can do it_ and the blurred image on the glass closes its eyes in defeat.

 _"Do you know what happens to Lost Boys who fight pirates?"_ his fourth grade English teacher once asked. _"They get scared and run home. That is the moral of the story."_

The TV flickers awake. Jack Sparrow is back on the ship of his dreams. And Javi staggers on.

* * *

There's something about the way Morozov's eyes have been following a certain rinkmate these past couple of weeks that makes Javi shiver. He focuses on his own jumps— and falls, accidentally gets in her path and someone _growls._

Javi apologizes and skates to the opposite end as fast as his blades can take him before Morozov loses it.

He still gets the full round of lecture time afterward.

"I'm warning you, Fernandez. That girl is a future star! Not like _you,_ who after placing decently at Europeans, suddenly lost all his drive! Where is that fire you had before? You have no federation to back you up, you cannot even pay a real coaching fee, yet you can afford to fool around and be this _lazy!_ Think of what would have happened if I left you to rot in those camps. Think where you would be now!"

He doesn't say, _"You're nothing without me."_

He doesn't need to.

So Javi goes back and keeps to himself and tries not to sulk until noon, ignoring the grinding in his head and the pull of his stomach. Why did he leave Spain again?

Lunchbreak couldn't come soon enough. His mind is as full as his wallet is empty. He scans the menu for the cheapest item for takeout. He finds it: a bread bun, a sliver of meat, both tiny; this should tide him over until dinner.

"Hi," says the cute Japanese girl, Miki, who somehow manages to keep a smile on her face even after a set of haircutter spins. There's an extra platter beside the bowl with chopsticks on her tray. It's probably a peace offering. Maybe she wants to be friends. But he doesn't see that. He sees the fierce snarl on his coach's mouth. The hard set of his eyes.

Javi's hungry, he missed breakfast, and she's offering free lunch.

But he can't afford to get kicked out.

"No thank you," he declines politely. "I'm full."

* * *

"Sometimes I wish the sun would just fall and burn us all to crispy tortillas."

Haru eyes the reddish sauce on his plate warily.

"Is something wrong with me?" he questions Haru as the latter twists his fork into a pile of spaghetti. Haru scrunches after his first mouthful, mumbling something about ramen tasting better, and Javi takes it as a sign to continue. "Most guys my age are busy preparing for University. I'm one of the odd ones worried about Olympic qualifiers."

Haru contemplates for a while, then plops another forkful into his mouth.

"I mean, think about it. I'm Spanish. When was the last time anyone from Spain medaled in the Winter Olympics? When did anyone get a medal for _figure skating?"_

Haru actually finishes his spaghetti, then decides he likes it enough to kidnap Javi's share.

"But then if you look at the ladies, we have a three-way race between Italy and Japan and Korea. That's unheard of! So maybe I'm not really as crazy as I look?"

Haru blinks at him. Javi's gaze shifts from the boy's face to the two empty plates— almost licked clean— and reaches into his pocket again.

* * *

"Remember when we were kids and I wanted to build an ice castle in the backyard? You were going to dress up as a queen and we'd have an army of snowmen— right in the heart of Madrid," Javi reminisces wistfully, drumming his fingers on the table as the video takes a trip to Jupiter and back to properly load.

He frowns. His sister's face blurs again as the camera does a horrible job tracking her movements through a damaged screen.

They talk about the weather. They talk about cheese. They don't talk about skating at all.

"Javi, I know you. When you're not smiling, the sky's falling," Laura points out.

"I miss the dinner table at home," he confesses. "Have you changed the tablecloth yet?"

"Aww Javi," she croons. "We miss you too. It's boring with no one to kick awake every morning."

"How long has it been? I miss my bed. I miss the floors. I miss the ceiling. I miss the porch. I miss the fiestas."

"And the cat," adds his sister.

"And the cats. All of them."

"You're in Moscow now. That's not too far away. We don't have an ocean keeping us apart."

"Only a whole enormous _continent!"_

"Just half of it! One third! What happened to your sense of geography, dear brother?" she counters.

"Must have gotten stuck in the engine during the last flight," he jokes, earning an eyeroll before he turns serious again. "This is just a trial run. I don't really know if we'll stay here permanently. I heard something about moving here after Vancouver, to prepare for Sochi, but I don't know. I don't even want to think about that. I don't care about the next season; I just need to make it through the free and not embarrass everyone. That's it. Ma and Pa have suffered enough. I don't wanna cause trouble for them anymore."

For he space of several breaths, Laura just stares at him.

"Javi? Are you okay?" she asks for maybe the hundredth time since he left Madrid.

"I hope so," he says. He bids her goodbye and watches her face melt into a black hole.

* * *

"What happens to moths when they lose their wings?" Haru muses, as Javi slices open his second lemon of the afternoon.

He sucks on the pulp. Sour. Very sour. Good.

"Well," he replies tentatively, wiping dribbles of juice from his chin, "if they lose their wings, they should be dead, right?"

"What if they become caterpillars again?" is Haru's brilliant new idea.

Javi ponders for a moment. What happens? They _remember,_ that's what. The life they forgot, the world they traded for open skies and fields of flowers— it all comes rushing back and the earthbound self emerges again.

Or yeah, they'd be dead.

"Don't ask me," he shrugs at last. "I didn't go to college."

"Silly Javi. You don't need to go to _Yale_ to answer that."

To that he has no reply; the conversation lulls, and Haru tells him a story.

"Do you know the legend of Endymion?"

Javi doesn't.

"Long ago there was a prince who was so handsome that the moon fell in love with him. She put a sleeping spell on him to keep him young forever and every night when the moon is full she visits him on the mountains. But he never sees her because he will always remain asleep for all eternity."

"That's a sad story."

Haru's eyes twinkle. "But I think I know one person who'd enjoy that."

"Who?" Javi asks, suddenly curious.

"It's _you,_ of course!"

"Are you implying I sleep too much?" Javi gasps in fake outrage. "I'm a skater! We skaters need our beauty nap! It's what keeps our quads fit and healthy."

"Not if you come to class two hours late!"

"Hey! I was only one hour late last time!"

Haru's eyebrow lifts. He wonders if the boy has a built-in lie detector.

"Okay one hour and… forty minutes… but I wasn't that late! And it wasn't my fault; my alarm didn't work!"

Haru's arms are crossed. He's not buying it.

"Would you believe my phone battery was dead?"

Haru squints.

"It's the truth, I swear!" Javi reaches for another lemon, uncaring if his stomach decides to complain later. "Hey, do you want to… maybe… would you like to hang out in my apartment?" The question flies out before he can stop himself. "We could have a sleepover— play games, watch a movie. Things like that."

"Will you have ramen for dinner?"

"Maybe? I could pick a few things up at the convenience store on the way."

Javi almost thinks Haru will say yes, but then the other boy puts his chopsticks down and shakes his head. "I'm sorry. They're running some tests tonight," he declines, eyes downcast for some reason.

"Maybe next time then?" Javi offers.

"Maybe," Haru says. He stares at his feet.

* * *

The next afternoon no one does jump practice. Distraught faces fill every corner of the rink.

"What's going on?" Javi asks worriedly when he arrives _one hour and thirty-five minutes_ late.

His coach hurries them along.

"Pack up," he instructs them, looking the most excited he's been in months. "We're moving."


	12. XI

[Haru]

Light spears through the imitation wood shutters of the lab in a shower of golden broomsticks. Rays slip past his fingers like stingless needless; their heat cannot touch him.

"Someone snuck out again," scolds a hoarse voice amid the shrill whirring of computers.

No sound accompanies Haru's footsteps. He shuts the door quietly. "I wasn't skating," he says in his defense. "I just went to meet my friend."

"Oh, the Spanish boy with curly hair? I told you to stay away from him. I heard from some coaches in the rink; that boy is sick in the head. He probably can't tell you apart from his other hallucinations."

"Javi is not sick! He just misses home."

"Don't you?"

Does he? He misses flying. Jumping triples feels close. He misses Japan. The parks and forests here aren't too far off in comparison. He wants friends and freedom and not having to worry about being discarded when his time is up. With Javi, it's never like that.

But Javi will be gone soon.

* * *

Autumn is coming. Sunset's last embers cast wild shadows that shift and grow with the wind, and the leaves and flowers grant him the silhouette of wings in the fading light.

"Maybe they're not really what you're looking for. Maybe what you need is something else," says Javi, staring at the violets and reds streaking across the sky like a costume.

"Maybe." Haru whistles, pensive and wistful.

"Remember Pinocchio? All he really wanted was to be a real boy. He just got lost along the way."

"But Javi, I don't have a talking cricket."

"You have Pooh."

Haru tests his weight on a branch. It gives slightly but doesn't crack.

"I'm going to Japan."

Javi bounces a ball on his knees, his elbow, his head, before kicking it at a thick trunk. It returns. He slams it back. The angle is off; he chases it. "I'm sure Pooh would love it there."

Haru jumps down.

 _Scratch. Scratch._ He scrapes wildflowers off the ground, getting summer dirt on his fingers. He'll rub it off later.

"Are you going to practice tomorrow?"

"Might as well. I'll be in Hackensack before you know it; better squeeze in all the practice time I can."

Javi kicks the ball to him. He kicks it back hard, barely missing Javi's shoulder as it flies into the bushes. Javi jogs over to fish it out.

"It feels like only yesterday that I shuttled through Los Angeles, and now I'm going back. Just when I was getting attached to this rink."

"But you told me you preferred New Jersey," Haru objects.

"To be honest, I never really liked it anywhere. Maybe if I had another coach…" Javi's voice trails off. "Maybe I'm just homesick. It would be easier if I had a skating friend like you. I mean, there are tons of folks at the rink, and they're all friendly, but—" He shakes his head and draws his finger across the fleece blanket of clouds splitting the sky into an illusion of beach and coastline. "You know I wish I could stuff you in a plane."

"You mean you'd _kidnap_ me? Javi, you're so _bad."_

"No worries, I'll simply find some way to open that emergency hatch and drop you off right above our house. You'll finally get a taste of Mom's homemade _bizcocho._ And I'll have someone to help gang up on my sister," Javi grins impishly. He passes the ball with more force than necessary; Haru lets it slam into his chest.

* * *

The days waltz and summer marches on and constellations swing round the turntable. He has never dreaded the fall season as much as he does now. He dreams of Spanish lakes and flying a half-asleep Javi to Japan and cats rolling under piles of cherry blossoms.

He stops. The more he thinks, the more he wishes, and some things are just meant to be impossible.

* * *

His favorite jump returns with the aftertaste of bittermelon and roses.

"You got your triple Axel back!" Javi almost flings him into the air again, beaming with excitement and a palpable satisfaction for what Haru accomplishes this afternoon. "And it's much, much better than mine!"

Haru's throat is thick and empty all at once. "I'm leaving tomorrow," he reminds Javi.

"I know," Javi mumbles, extending his arm to squeeze Haru's shoulder. "I still hope you'll remember to watch me skate in the Olympics. If I make the cut." His voice is soft and sad.

Something blurs Haru's vision. It's strange and watery like warm lubricating fluid under his eyelids.

"Thank you, Javi," he whispers. "Thank you. For everything."

 _I'll never forget you_ , he almost says, but holds his tongue because Javi deserves nothing but honesty, and he knows this isn't a promise he's sure he can keep.

"See you, Haru. I hope we meet again soon."

One final smile, the bravest and strongest he's ever been.

"Gambatte, Javi."

And then there are stars and there is the night fading into bird chatter and then he is on a plane, among the clouds, flying, but it's not quite the same without his own wings providing the lift.

He watches the world shrink outside the window. It's all brown and green with hues of gray and yellow until they reach the blank blue ocean that curves slightly under the piles of clouds. He notices his faint reflection on the glass right next to the chubby plushie he sort-of-begged-sort-of-forced Javi to buy him. He looks like an ordinary boy.

Nothing special. Nothing _wrong._

The plane touches down at last. It's a rough landing. He reaches for the seatbelt wrapped around his waist like shackles.

The cabin crew begin moving. Passengers get up and reach for their bags.

He is outside the plane now.

He is outside the airport now.

He is outside the city now.

He grabs his Pooh.

_What happens when a moth loses its wings?_

The car door opens.

His fingers clutch Pooh in a deathgrip.

"Yutsuru?"

A voice. Several voices. He blocks them out.

"We're here."

 _Here_ means another lab, another set of experiments, a total wipeout of his memory in exchange for a reboot. He'll be free to roam the skies again, like he always wanted.

If they let him.

_If._

_What happens when a moth loses its wings?_

"Yutsuru, hurry up. They're waiting."

_It is still a moth. Dead perhaps, alive if lucky, but it is still a moth._

_Even if it never flies anymore._

The wind picks up.

He rips off the tracer and crushes it with his shoes and runs and runs and runs and finally, when his legs can no longer move and the scar of his wing grafts begins to ache, he summons the last of his strength and flings it into the sea.

* * *

_What happens to moths when they find their wings?_

_They leave._


	13. XII

[Javi]

Sometimes Javier dreams of cherry blossoms. Sometimes he dreams himself back in Spain, where the sunset and the soccer fields stretch far into the horizon. Sometimes he hears a wheezing laugh, an invisible set of footprints, unseen boots crunching over packed snow.

He wakes up and it is the end of summer. He wakes up and the scent has vanished.

The next time he trips on a spin he looks over his shoulder, but no fairy boy emerges from the ice. The rink is too silent. The north wind is unwelcoming. Depression is a faceless stranger holding his doors shut, too tight for anyone to open, too cold for him to kick apart himself. He finds himself missing Haru again.

 _Yutsuru,_ he calls softly, to the spring-forsaken air.

No one answers.


	14. XIII

_Summer, 2012_

[Yuzu]

The doors to the Cricket Club creak open one morning. In walks a seventeen-year-old skater from Japan, disaster survivor and World medalist who crossed an ocean for the chance to train under Coach Brian Orser.

"Yuzuru Hanyu," he introduces himself in rehearsed English. The name rolls off his tongue easily. Maybe the carving on the bow disagrees. But that is another life, something he cannot remember, something he has no connection to anymore.

"I here to learn quads with Javier Fernandez. You can call me Yuzu," he says. "Like the— like the fruit."

"There's a Yuzu fruit?"

"Yes. It sour. Yellow. Grow in winter."

"That sounds like a lemon. I like lemons." It's his intended rival, the Spanish skater with the quad Salchow he needs to win the Olympics, the future Yagudin to his Plushenko. He bows and introduces himself again, and to his surprise he finds himself being squeezed to death in a lung-crushing hug.

The first day is nothing like what he expected. The first week is unbelievable. Fernandez is actually as kind and friendly as the rumors go, and it doesn't take long for the idea of a cuthroat competition like the one of his idol to evaporate from his mind. In Canada, with Fernandez — _Javi _—__ and his coaches, it's different. It feels like the start of a long and beautiful journey.

"You'll love it here, Yuzu," says Javi, bright eyes and the widest smile, and Yuzu believes him.

It's been three years since he woke up with the sun in his eyes, sand between his nails, and seafoam bubbling around his toes. He's come a long way since then.

So when Javi points to the newly installed Japanese flag on the wall, he draws a line toward the Spanish one and envisions a triangle-shaped ribbon in between.

"Okaeri," Javi adds in a half-whisper. "Welcome home, fairy boy."

 _Fairy,_ Javi calls him, like one of the strange faceless voices in his dreams. There is more fondness than awe now, more kindness, and the sort of laugh that feels warm and comforting.

"I not fairy," Yuzu says. "There no drop of magic in me."

"But there is. Wherever you go, whatever you do, there will always be something special about you." There's a sense of unshakable confidence in Javi's words that he's never noticed before. Not since their first meeting at the Grand Prix, or before then when he was researching the skill levels of his quad-wielding competition. A lot must have changed within the past year and he can't wait to do that side-by-side triple Axel someone suggested jokingly at Rostelecom for real.

And this, Yuzu thinks, is way better than whatever sort of hermit life he was planning to lead when he decided to train abroad. He's starting to like it here already.

He walks over to the edge and reaches down to touch the shadow on the ice. It's a habit he's had since who knows when, the urge to bend over and search for a reflection, even if he doesn't see any face but his own.

He (attempts to) discuss something with the head coach, Brian Orser, and a few confused bows and _thank yous_ and _yeses_ later, he's good to go.

Javi is brimming with excitement when he steps onto the ice. Yuzu still doesn't know enough English to communicate well, but he smiles and high-fives the Spanish skater before pushing off toward the center of the rink.

The ice feels good. He pauses on his third lap and takes a deep breath, closing his eyes, feeling the club's air submerse him in its distinct whispers. When he opens them, Javi has already caught up to him.

"So? What are you waiting for, _amigo_? Ready to go conquer the world together?"

This time, Yuzu's smile dives deep, deep, deep, a giddy rush of kimochi all the way to his heart.

* * *

* * *

[Javi]

He hears footsteps creek behind him. Sounds like something worth checking out, but shadows don't move, and rats hate it here.

Coach Tracy is right. He's been too nervous lately. Or excited. Or both.

Yutsu— Yuzu is back.

But some of his memories are missing. And during the time he spent in Japan his English has regressed to the point that they can't understand each other well enough.

 _It's okay_ , he tells his new training mate when he catches him staring blankly at the ice. It might be an unfortunate consequence of no longer being whatever kind of fairy creature he once was.

Or _was_ he? Yuzu doesn't vanish, doesn't generate snowflakes with some kind of mechanism in his fingers. That's crazy, and he'd likely find himself in a hospital if he dared to ask. Everything before TCC seems like a wild and endlessly haunting dream. Javi must have hallucinated half of it.

But it doesn't matter. He's in a better place now. He has a coach— a second family to care for him. He doesn't wake up wishing for the world to end. He isn't depressed, isn't imagining things that aren't real. He's okay now.

He's been given a second chance, and he's not going to blow it this time. There will be new memories to come. New friends. New skating techniques to master. He's here now, in Canada, and the season has just begun.

He takes his time lacing his skates. Not too tight, not too loose. Just right. He stretches his arms, and the lights overhead cast a ring of glowing lights like an incantation.

_Haru Yo Koi. Come Spring, wherever you are._


	15. All These Withered Stars - [I]

**_Tears make kaleidoscopes in your eyes  
And hurt, I know you're hurting, but so am I  
And love, if your wings are broken  
Borrow mine 'til yours can open too  
'Cause I'm gonna stand by you..._ **

**_~Rachel Platten_ **

* * *

_Spring, 2017_

[Javi]

The first part is losing. It's nerves and split-second mental math and the apathy of frozen water. It's medals slipping out of reach after taking the lead the day before. Theirs is a duel of twin knives on a field of needles, and this time, the eagle falls.

_Cygnus olor, anatidae…_

In retrospect, Javier shouldn't have been surprised. There was no way he could have won, no way anyone could surpass the ethereal grace of timed wing beats on ice. The flowing of water, the mountain breeze — the storm, the supplicant, the warrior — it was as if someone stole a piece of nature's lifestrings and trained it to dance. Waves hushed as he flexed his fingers; the forest stilled when he took a breath, tender as dawn's first rays upon a snow-veiled path. He reached forth, and the silence came to life, drenching him with strains of a soul song. A flourish here, a swish of blades; the violins gasped, and Javi heard it. The ice heard it. He could feel the frost patterns breathing, trembling where they lay as one by one the notes of the piano followed the boy's descent into the throes of despair. And as the music came crashing down, ancient winds from the four corners of the earth lifted him up in a shower of icicle feathers, higher and higher until his fingers touched that realm where dusk curls into dawn and supernovas are born.

 _Perfection incarnate,_ everyone said, and they were right.

Javi doesn't believe in perfection, not in this world, not in this lifetime. But he knows deep within himself that he could live a hundred years and never see anything as beautiful as the boy who rewrote history today. There's a medal in that flag, and one burning sun on his chest right now. This is what he deserves, always and forever; it is his destiny to conquer summits all others can only dream of.

And Javi is just _Javi,_ a few stolen moments on top of the mountain, a scattering of fiercely-fought gold, and nothing more.

He hears a familiar glide of blades, so crisp and light that it's terrifying. Yuzuru Hanyu, the swan among ducklings, the best of the best, a young man chiseled out of diamonds and shooting stars and galaxies. All the rinks in the world are too small to hold him; his feet stir up whirlwinds when he laughs, in his heart lies the strength of granite forests, in his eyes a glimpse of the tundra at midnight. There's an unstated brilliance in everything he does, some unreachable, intangible thing that hurls little yellow bears into the rink and wipes tears from a nation's cheeks. The winners of their own events flock around him in homage to what everyone has dubbed a miracle on the ice.

Javi has no place in that circle of greatness.

Someone told him an ice rink is simply a hole in the center of the earth where your regrets stare back at you. Well they're all piling up now.

"Are you okay?" Brian asks him.

"I'm exhausted."

"Hey, don't beat yourself up over this. It wasn't your best skate; I know the competition's tough, but you still have next season to recover. You gotta stay focused. The battle's not over yet. Remember, we're aiming for Pyeongchang now."

Javier nods absently. Pyeongchang is miles and miles away, too far and too cold for his aging bones. Jumps can only hold you up for so long, and when your body breaks, when you can't launch yourself into four revolutions in the air without fearing a concussion, what do you have left?

_Superman exhibitions._

_Bullfighter costumes._

_Nothing._

"You hear me, Javi? Next time, you're gonna be on that podium, okay? You and Yuzu. You'll both medal."

His mind spins back to Sochi, another fourth-place finish, to a younger him torn down by one popped Salchow too many, taking a bow in a fluttering red cape and make-believe sneakers and wishing he could sublimate.

Today was no better; those jumps, those spins, the ridiculously underwhelming step sequence, the screech of his blades, everything. Such a disaster his freeskate was that he might as well skip the gala, swim back to Spain and sleep through the next season.

"Hang on, Javi. You can do it. I believe in you."

"Okay," he shrugs, because it's Brian, because he can let the whole world down but not his coach, not family. So he shushes the voices in his head and tells himself to be mature, to accept defeat like he always has before, with a smile and a hug and no bitter feelings.

The Javier of six years ago would've been happy just to finish in the top ten. His skill set wasn't anything special, and he had other things on his mind. Like, nonexistent finances, a penchant for butt-sliding, getting lost in a maze of training camps, deciphering instructions in a language he could barely speak.

But then came the onslaught of medals: bronzes and silvers and finally, golds. He learned to love them, to want them, treating every podium he climbed and every new ribbon hanging on his neck like another loop of titanium chaining down his nightmares. Now the links have snapped, and it's slowly creeping up on him, those memories buried beneath hours of practice and fluctuating world standings.

_"What a shame. You were born to be an eagle, but you limp like a wounded dog."_

_"Graciousness does not make a champion. Remember that, Fernandez."_

_"You're nothing without me."_

He remembers falling flat on his face, hands tied behind his back, on the bitter, cruel ice, ears flaming in mortification as his rinkmates laughed and his Russian coach burned the terrors of Siberian winter deep into his soul.

And now he's back to the beginning. Back to the year of switching coaching teams. Back to the day he saw the boy swan with mismatched feathers who would one day take over the world.

For Javi, it always starts and ends with losing.

* * *

When he was younger, the only starry night Javi knew was an ode to playful blue-gray swirls and firelight over a city. Now there is another, serene as the painting was not; a living, breathing creature equal in melancholy and a hundredfold more beautiful.

There he is, the mute enchanter, armed with a masterpiece of eiderdown and artist fingers, poised to reenact his lullaby, to make the audience tilt on his axis one final time. Gone is yesterday's falcon; tonight he clothes himself in the grief of a dying swan. Nostalgia tinges those feathers a delicate moonlight blue, embellished with a hundred miniature candles scintillating in the near darkness.

To skate so well that even gravity forgets itself, searing the ice with your footsteps until the crossbeams sag in envy and the cameras self-destruct; to capture with every movement the sorrow of petals drifting on the rippled koi pond; to fling your soul into the world with abandon, wanting everything, expecting nothing, pinning your hopes and dreams on silver threads below your feet — it is simply, insane.

_Exquisite._

It's one of those things that steal your breath and lock themselves in memory. Like, the Niagara. The time his father woke him up in the middle of the night to watch a meteor shower in their backyard. All the blues and yellows of coral atolls from an airplane window, or the hundred sunset scarlet pieces of mackerel sky.

The swan leaps, too greedy for death to take captive, and as he plunges to earth in his final flight, his wings transform into five-fingered hands and pained feet.

And he soars.

Javi has never seen anything like this. It is too much, too powerful for his dark-ringed eyes, so he looks away.


	16. II

[Javi]

Russia is a dark memory. There are blank spaces and a gruff, mocking voice that makes him shudder whenever he dares pry apart the locks of his past. Visions or hallucinations, he can't tell. He doesn't want them, he'd rather not find out— he has two world golds now, more European titles than can fit in one palm, and the Olympics just ahead. The last thing he needs is a distraction to haunt him.

_It's over. You don't have to remember. They're gone._

_He's gone._

A flash shoots through his skull, stirring up vague silhouettes of a boy with something unreal about him. Visions of northern ice were never happy, except ones shared with that strange figure wrapped in petals and apricots who seemed to be the antithesis of winter itself.

_"I'll help you with your Axel."_

_"You came to a sports outlet to buy noodles?"_

The boy laughs, an ever puzzling riddle at the back of his mind. He turns, and the phantom is Yuzu when he first came to Cricket, young and wide-eyed and bursting with excitement.

His fist slams on the wall. The season is over; his rival just handed him defeat on a frosted platter. Won't Yuzu ever give him a break? Does the _reigning world champion_ have to tear down his peace of mind too?

_"Javi? Javi! Javi! Ja-vi!"_

_"What happens to moths when they lose their wings?"_

_"Javiiiii!"_

His head hurts.

* * *

The days are growing longer, and Javi's patience is wearing thin. A frazzled restlessness builds up at practice, spilling into the night in the form of ominous visions.

He's at the center of the rink staring into a mosaic of Korean flags, the few drops of lemon essence in his throat doing nothing to tame the fireworks going off in his ribcage. He does three turns into the opening Salchow and lands it with an ease that sends the crowd roaring.

He falls on the next jump.

 _It's okay_ , he reminds himself. _Keep going, keep going._

And he does. He fights for every landing afterward, and even manages to rev up his spins. But the collective gasp from the crowd stretches on, getting louder and wilder until the melody becomes a backdrop for the inhuman shrieking filling the arena. Someone tosses a bird plushie directly in his path, and others soon follow, booing and pelting him with dozens upon dozens of stuffed toys that sprout feathers as they hit the ice. Soon there's a whole swarm of wings squealing recklessly in a dark halo around the stands. Now the banners are ripping apart. Something slams into him amidst the chaos and he loses his footing, crashing headfirst into a curtain of ash-tipped feathers that must have slipped from the boards.

_Get up, Javi. It's not over yet._

He stumbles to his feet right in time for the step sequence. Against the odds, he pulls himself together and launches into a triple Axel, then a couple more spins and combos, giving his very best until the final note. By now, the avian marauders have emptied the scene except one. He drags himself to the Kiss and Cry cradling a dead swan in his arms.

They award him a silver medal with a total score of 326 by virtue of his _quintiple_ Salchow.

 _Wait._ Something's not right, and it's more than just the vampirish black birds.

"Did they change the system again?" he asks Brian.

But his coach isn't listening. The chanting from the audience picks up, and it's not his name they call out.

"Who...what's going on...the competition's over… Yuzu won! The third placer was just announced—"

Brian taps his shoulder. "Javi. Look."

He follows the older man's gaze to the figure emerging from the skater's entrance.

_Yuzu?_

The sound of blades, so crisp and light...

_No._

All eyes are on the stranger now. He's built light, built for the ice, exactly like Yuzu, except Yuzu's staring at the stranger too.

_Someone else._

The boy skates around and picks something and tosses it in the air, creating a miniature snowfall that reminds him of something… something… it's not Canada… where is it…

"Javiii!" the boy singsongs, waving at him when he passes near the boards on a spiral.

It's Yuzu but not Yuzu. Not Yuzu, but Javi knows him. He's met this boy before. His name is… is… it's at the tip of Javi's tongue… his name is…

"Javi, come skate with me!"

Then he notices the feathers. Barely perceptible at first, they gradually elongate, growing out of Yuzu's— the boy's clothes. Black swan feathers. Eyes grow dark and darker still, and Javi feels a looming dread in the air, pressing, pressing closer, a weight on his chest, a clawing at his back, seconds away from swallowing him up.

He wakes up to the sound of erratic flapping outside the window. It's three a.m. and the chickens are bursting with joy and he doesn't get a wink of sleep afterward.

* * *

"I need a vacation," he tells Brian, surprising him with a visit to his office. "You know, rest, recharge, return with a vengeance." He puts on the most charming smile he can muster and prays the soft crinkles around his sleep-deprived eyes will be enough to plead his cause.

Skating is a mental game, after all. He'll use the time to strategize, to prepare himself for the grueling battle ahead. With a quad flip here, and a quad Lutz combo there, and every other kid attempting to be the next human rocket ship, his chances of getting that medal are looking more dismal by the minute. There are but two rusty weapons in his arsenal, his faithful companions all these wretched years, and he can only hope they won't fail him in the biggest fight of his life. He's going to crawl on bleeding knees to that podium if he has to.

He has to. He will.

It's his last chance.

Brian's eyes twinkle when they meet his. "Back to Spain I suppose? Or do you have somewhere else in mind this time?"

Javi blinks in disbelief. His coach actually agrees.

(He also laughs, shakes his head, and murmurs something like _Javi will be Javi until the sky's falling,_ but this is their routine and Brian's had six years to resign himself to this fact.)

"I'm thinking... Japan."

 _"Japan?_ Why? Is this some rivalry stuff going on?"

Javi stumbles for words. "Well... you see..." _I'm going to Japan because someone reminds me of cherry blossoms and I see swans in my dreams and maybe I'm just so desperate I'd beg the shrines in Sendai for help..._

No way could he explain that trainwreck of thoughts, so he clamps his mouth shut and shrugs.

Brian sighs and pats his shoulder. "Javi. No matter what, you will always be a two-time world champion. Nothing— not even getting kicked off the podium— will ever change that. You're still a force to contend with. Believe me, I know." There's a sliver of silver peeking out from Brian's temples, and not a hint of gold anywhere except the buttons of his coat.

If any pain remains in those eyes, it hides itself well.

"Thanks, Coach."

He leaves Brian's office with a surge of gratitude in his chest. Brian never lost faith in him. Never.

He finds a vacant spot in the maze of glassy tripwires and slices into it. Line, circle, three more lines. Two holes and a wobble for a smile, a few strands of hair, and a tiny heart in the center. _This is Javi._ He scratches a messy triangle around it like a barricade. _This is Spain._

 _Spain's Javi. Javi's Spain_. He'll keep that in mind.

He traces patterns around the rink and watches the feast of acrobatics unfold before him. There's the up and coming juniors twisting through the air; tin soldiers in freefall, no parachutes. The girls and their spins that could snap his back in half. And his rival, the reigning champion, the maestro virtuoso in his world of unparalleled precision from the flicker of his eyelids to the jet streams trailing in his wake. He's carving his own red carpet, summoning blizzards, reaping snowflakes with the snap of his wrist.

The air feels thicker somehow.

Javi lands a few triples and a step-out from a quad before returning to the site of his art experiment. There's a gash on its chest and a longer one on its neck. His poor ice drawing is dead.

* * *

He needs two extra doses of caffeine to make it to the next practice. He lands his first jump, a double toeloop, and falls apart on a spread eagle. The music calls to him, flinging him round the corners — once, twice, a hundred times more if it could, but Javi is a man of strings and creaking hinges now; the weight of the years pulls him back and he cannot follow, he cannot, cannot anymore.

_Get your act together, Javi._

It feels like depression. He's dealt with that before. And he's gotten better at beating his demons over the years, but this has been such a wretched week for him that Yuzu's enthusiastic _"Bye bye"_ on his way out sounds like a death sentence.

If he were richer, he'd toss his phone in the shower.

If he were younger, he wouldn't let himself wake up.

Maybe it's time to go home for good. He misses his family. He craves the warm Mediterranean coast where no one stutters in a makeshift language. Miles away from this…this _circus_ where he bleeds for strangers' entertainment, courting death on a frozen trampoline all for a scrap of metal — or plastic — on his neck. The years pass and the rules change, and the only constant is broken joints and fog in his breath as he wanders in circles until the frost burns warm in comparison to his starving heart.

But _this_ is home too.

This frigid arena of bruised thighs and ludicrous scores and mispronounced syllables where the constant sawing of metal blades can drive anyone mad— somehow he took the pieces and forced them together, and with his coaches' help, built himself a shelter. And it's fragile; it's warm but it's falling, it's falling apart.

He dozes off on the dinner table and wakes up with a headache the next morning.

Breakfast is not the ideal time to ponder one's mortality, so he heads to the rink earlier than usual. It feels good. Too good. He grabs a coffee, ditches practice, and spends the next hour playing soccer in the backyard.

"You okay?" Brian keeps asking.

_No, I'm not, I'm not okay. Nothing's okay. There is no dream. There is no Spanish flag. I'm not gonna make it. Ma, Pa, I'm sorry, so sorry…_

"Javi? What's wrong?" a voice interrupts. It's Yuzu and his impeccable concerned-rinkmate face.

He can't stand it.

"You have your goals," Javi says, taking the heaviest breath he has in ages, "so do I," and kicks a stone into the post.

* * *

Training goes about as bad as he could expect. He walks back to the lobby with the image of a mascot falling flat on its face at a kid's birthday party. Maybe that could be his future job when all this is done with.

He's still mulling this over when a door opens and he overhears the younger boys deep in conversation. Gaming stuff, probably, but he catches Jun Hwan explain something about a frozen lake in the mountains with fairies in disguise.

"So, there was a huge flock of swans on the ice."

"Uh-huh."

"They were dancing."

"Hold on a second. You're saying that your ancestors found a bunch of shapeshifting birds doing some weird ice dance on top of a magical mountain in the middle of nowhere?"

"It wasn't nowhere. There's an island about halfway between Korea and Japan where a few fishermen live, and that's where they saw the fairies."

"Sure they weren't hallucinating? Cause this sounds like your typical mermaid story — some seasick sailor saw an ordinary creature and thought it was something magical. Then the local folks believed him, and passed it on and on and on— you don't even know if the fairy was a girl or a guy."

"According to the legend, those who did see the fairy couldn't tell if it was male or female. It just was so beautiful. But that beauty comes with a curse."

"Like the Yuki-onna?" asks Joseph.

"Hey, will you let him finish?" Conrad cuts him off.

"The fairy," Jun continues, "is said to be so graceful when it dances that anyone who watches will fall into a trance. Then all the swans will gather around and push the unsuspecting traveller off a cliff."

"Were the bodies ever found?"

"No, the swans eat them. I hate to say it, but a lot of our legends are scary."

The voices fade down the hall. They turn the corner and pass by Yuzu, who exchanges a few words with them and leaves for the lip-synching solitude of whatever song he's playing on his earphones. He seems a lot happier than he did throughout the season, chasing that elusive quad loop.

And look what he got: a new world record.

_Good for him._

Javi's fingers ball into fists. Yuzu is okay. Next season, he'll be okay. Come Olympics, he'll be okay. No need to worry, no need to fuss over him anymore. He has all of Japan to do that. Javi can already imagine Yuzu's face when he jumps on top of that podium. _Again._

Javi will just have to be contented with bronze or silver— or nothing at all. Will he even make it? He's just barely hanging on now.

 _You can do it! Come on, Javi!_ says the increasingly persistent Yuzu-like voice in his head.

He glances at Yuzu. He's still rocking to the beat, and Javi really ought to be a little less pathetic.

"Hey, Jun!" he calls out, before he can stop himself. Because it sounds like an _adventure,_ and this could be exactly what he needs to get his head out of this slump. "Wait up!"

And no, he hasn't lost his mind.

_Yet._

"Jun! Where's that island again?"


	17. III

[Javi]

After getting his team's approval to waste the next thirty or so days of his life, Javi books a flight to Japan to chase down a legend.

Time spent away from the dungeonhold of on-ice training is unexpectedly refreshing. The nights are kinder and a year's worth of tension drains from him as he spends the weekend island-hopping, watching spring thaw on marbled Pacific currents and the undulating silver canyons up above.

"We're nearing Hakuchou Hisui," the tour guide announces. He points two fingers towards the murky gray-green speck about an hour's journey from the coast of Tsushima. Javi nods, distracted by the waves skittering around the boat and the salty air kicking his cheeks, as the man in vintage clothes and a Pokemon sun hat delves into a history lesson about the sinking of the Baltic warships in the Sea of Japan and how it was an unexpected turning point in the Russo-Japanese war and a catalyst for worldwide upheavals of the past century.

He's a talkative guy. More passionate than Yuzu's monologues with the ice rink, and Javi thought nothing could ever top that. He goes on and on and on, from the first dynasty that ruled the archipelago to a mecha anime in the seventies that helped spark a revolution in South East Asia, but the one thing that sticks is the way it all mirrors the dominance of this island nation in a traditionally western winter sport.

They reach the tip of the isle.

A vanishing chain keeps it anchored between sky and ocean, under a swaying canopy of cloud feathers. Across the beach, a troop of quaint bamboo huts marks where the last traces of salt spray dissolve into the forest. Brush-painted paper crane strings flutter at the entrance, drawing one's gaze upward to tree-embroidered mountains that echo with the catcalls of nature. And all around, wind ruffles layer after layer of scalloped turquoise edged with lace, spraying foam sequins on the powdered mango shore.

He's not exactly awestruck, but…it's beautiful. Beautiful. Even the crunch of his shoes on pebbled sand feels like touching a secret world.

A blast of camera shutters escorts him on the trek inland. He executes a level four step sequence around bales of prawns and squid, trying and failing to take note of the tour guide's explanations. The group stops by a tented snack stand to catch their breaths, and out of nowhere a fish lands on Javi's foot and starts flopping around so wildly that it takes him a while to pick the thing up and toss it back into one of the buckets heaping with today's catch.

"Have you heard the legend of the dancing swans?" the guide — Mr. Kouharu…Koukoru…Kouhaku asks, as soon as the last of the passengers have disembarked.

"I have," Javi volunteers, wiping off remnants of fish goo from his sneakers. "Well, a friend told me a bit. He said there are fairies that live by a magical lake somewhere in the forest."

"Ah yes," Kouhaku-san continues. "It is the most famous story about this island. A hundred years ago, fairies in the form of birds lived here. They would dance so beautifully that any mortal who saw them would fall in love. But these feelings were almost always unrequited, for the fairies possessed hearts as cold as the depths of the sea."

"According to legend, every morning the fairies would wash their clothes in a spring, and feathers would be seen floating on the surface when the sun came up. That water was said to have traces of magic. Those who bathed in it would be instantly healed of their sickness. Many have gone in search of that place, but they either could not find it, or simply disappeared into the forest and were never seen again."

Javi lifts his eyes. The sparrow-lipped breeze rushes toward him as a panorama of blue morning assembles itself in his sight. Trickles of gossamer on newly hatched petals. Gold drops shimmering off the burning goblet in reverberant silence. Flecks of red and yellow, bobbing tails, firecracker wings. Surely there lies no malice in the overflowing, cotton-pasted sky.

"Where's the nearest bathroom?" someone asks all of a sudden. He limps down the path with a grimace, earning a few chuckles from the fifteen-man crowd.

And nature echoes in reply: a harsh wail from the green-brown patchwork that engulfs them.

It's the sound of spider webs tearing.

* * *

Dark falls gently upon his cabin with a stillness that belies the pit in his stomach. It's smoldering in there, layer after layer of heartache littered with the scars of Vancouver and Sochi, and at the very bottom is a curly-haired boy in self-exile across the Atlantic.

It won't be long until February, the quadrennial anniversary of his miscalculated Salchow. The date looms upon him like the first draught of an incoming thunderstorm. He has barely a year to go — less than twelve months and all he sees is falling.

But here he can forget. Curled up on a tatami mat, serenaded by bats and crickets and a stray cat that took a liking to him after feeding it half his dinner, Toronto and Pyeongchang are as distant as the stars tonight. So is his training mate, the once skinny, hyperactive teenager nicknamed after Japan's finest citrus, with a crazy donut spin and dreams too big to fit in his head.

He misses that boy sometimes. It's different now; the top spot on the podium is miles and miles of barbed wire between them. The last lighthearted conversation they ever had might have been eons ago, with the reigning GPF champion fake-swooning on the summer ice and him joking, _If the Axel were a girl, you'd marry her._

Yuzu bit down a laugh, landed a quad loop in the next competition, and executed a record-breaking skate, all in one season. And Javi had never been more proud. Perhaps he was sad, perhaps a tiny-huge part of him wished he could've nabbed more than a small medal for his efforts, but the hug he got afterwards? Better than all the applause in the world.

The aftermath of Helsinki felt like their beginning. Yuzuru Hanyu, World Junior Champion. Javier Fernandez, vying for a title of his own at Rostelecom. They were full of smiles and dreams back then.

Now the dreams remain and their respect for each other has reached heights only those in the pinnacle of sports can understand, but the laughter, the easy camaraderie, everything that once defined their synchronized steps on the ice— it's forced and tight and buried under an avalanche of world records that repel him like the wrong pole of a magnet.

Yuzu will always be his greatest and favorite rival; he's sworn long ago to support his rinkmate until the end, but too much competition endangers friendships and after Pyeongchang he seriously doubts there will be anything left.

And yet, when Yuzu approached him in the mixed zone and placed that medal on his neck…

It felt like hope. That maybe when the time comes for him to leave the sport for good, he won't have a ruined six-year friendship to add to his growing list of regrets.

There's a smile on his face when his eyelids close. When he sleeps, he dreams of impossible things.


	18. IV

[Javi]

The next day he wakes up to the sight of Yuzu sitting cross-legged beside his bed.

"Good morning, Javi! Did you sleep well?"

Javi's eyes bomb their sockets. Yuzu waves at him and he blinks and Yuzu disappears instantly, leaving him gaping at the wall of the bamboo cottage in shock.

Wait. That had to be a dream.

A really weird one.

The eerie silence of the place is making him imagine photoshoot makeup now, cause Yuzu looked several years younger.

Or maybe it was the fairies' doing. A bolt shoots down his nape at the thought.

He shakes off the remnants of sleep from his eyes and plans an expedition to the heart of the island. Blame it on the legacy of conquistadors in his veins, the likes of del Cano, Balboa, Cortes, de Leon, and the greats of centuries past, but there are things Javi came here for, and things he wants to find out before he leaves.

He finds a forty-something local named Hakutaka who introduces himself in broken English, claiming to have lived in eight other villages before settling down here, and yes, he has heard about those elusive winged sprites.

"My great-grandmother was a bird," the man declares, and Javi hires him on the spot.

Thirty minutes into the journey and he (probably) doesn't regret his decision. His companion takes him to an elder in town who knows the island's deepest secrets. They climb fifty steps up a hill to a traditional-styled cabin that is surprisingly warm inside. He takes his jacket off.

And his shoes.

"So you too have come in search of the myth," the woman greets them, tea in hand and eyes made ancient by affliction. "Every visitor to this house asks the same thing. They all seek what they should not, and they all suffer in the end. I will share but one tale, and it is not a happy one."

She sits down on the wooden floor and lays a piece of moth-riddled cloth on her kimono. Unfolding her paper fan, she trains her eyes on the ceiling.

"See those mountains? Where that valley is, there was once a glacier jutting out of the treetops. Until a few years ago, our tribe lived along that huge plateau of ice, but now all that remains is a lake at the foot of the mountain that never melts all year long."

"What happened?" Javi inquires, after Hakutaka stutters out a roughly coherent translation.

"Six years ago, there was a great earthquake. The ice broke apart."

She looks away. The knots in her hair are tight and imperfect. He notices a scar knifing through the wrinkles on her forehead. "It was terrible. So many houses were destroyed. I still remember the day the snow came crashing down and nearly buried me alive."

"Were you the only survivor?"

"No. Some of our tribe were away at a festival when the tragedy took place. They came back only to find their homes in ruins and their families gone. The sole remaining member of the council decided we had to leave the place for good, lest even worse misfortune should befall us. Many joined the town like I did, but the rest chose to move further into the woods. Those who did go never returned. There is no trace of them anywhere."

"Nowhere? No one ever saw them again?"

She shakes her head. "In truth, we were cursed. Our tribe had the best dancers in the island. But we angered the _yokai,_ who punished us by destroying the village."

" _Yokai?_ " he whispers to Hakutaka. "You mean nature spirits?"

"Yes, that's what we call the fairies."

The elder buries her fan under the scarlet cloth and continues, "A few months after the avalanche, a creature with a human face and the body of a monster was spotted in the woods. Some think it's one of the same _yokai_ who destroyed us. So be careful and do not stray away from the paths. Because they might find you, and if they do, you may never make it back alive."

The tale ends here. They bid her goodbye and she bows from her spot beside the window. This too is a story, a splintering cane in a withered hand, spine bent with the strength of those with no more tears left to cry.

"So, Fernandez-san wants to visit the ruins?" Hakutaka asks as they stoop through the doorway of the thatched hut.

_Does he?_

_Yes. No. Yes. No._

_Yes._

Because of course a fairy swan would be the perfect ticket to the Olympics. Right.

"If you can take me there, I'm going. Especially the lake — I'd like to check if it really stays frozen even during summer."

"Do you not fear the _yokai's_ wrath?"

Javi thinks back to Worlds, to jumps so massive they could have summoned tornadoes. He thinks of Barcelona. "I've faced crazier things before," he declares.

Hakutaka laughs, sparks of gray, all crinkles. "Then get ready. We have a lot of hiking to do."

The mountain air rasps at the sleeves of Javi's jacket like a toothed whip. "Tell me a story," he requests, and Hakutaka spends twenty minutes describing his incredulous encounter with a fox disguised as a green dragon during a thunderstorm the other month.

In turn Javi tells him about physics-defying moves on the ice. He tells him about his rinkmate.

"Yuzu's amazing, you know. Really, really amazing. Some even say he's the best skater who has ever lived."

"That person is Japanese, is he not? I know two or three famous skaters, but I have never heard of him before."

"Oh, I'm sure you will after the Olympics. He just turned twenty-two and already he's got thousands of fans travelling from all over the world just to see him skate."

"And this Yuzu is your rival?"

"Yes. The one and only. Except he's so far ahead that I fear I'll never be able to catch up."

It's bittersweet to think of. Yuzu's fame shines too bright and brilliant, and sometimes Javi just wants to grasp that faint skein of humanity left before it's completely gone, until even he himself doesn't recognize the boy said to belong to another planet.

_You're already the stars; come February, what will you be next?_

So he stops and talks of the important things. He mentions bell pepper sandwiches and strawberry cake and what it felt like to chase a stray raccoon all around the club.

He talks about Helsinki. He talks about victory just beyond his reach and the bittersweetness of witnessing the return of a true champion and how far away the podium in Korea seems now.

"One step at a time, my friend," Hakutaka advises him, after he pours out his woes. "One step, one more step, and we'll make it."

The path leads them to a series of uphill slopes guaranteed to leave welts on his feet if he hadn't the foresight to bring along his best pair of all-terrain trail runners. They reach the first trace of civilization after another hour of forging through wilderness.

 _La estrella alcanzar,_ is the first thought that crosses Javi's mind as he pauses to catch his breath. Unreachable stars.

"Here we are."

Clouds explode from the hills above the disaster site. Empty houses etched with neglect, a community isolated by the terrain. The bamboo fences are full of gaps and the yards overgrown with weeds, but many of the larger buildings are still in one piece. Hakutaka steps into a circle of charred stones and takes off his sandals. Javi hesitates for a moment, accidentally disturbs a trail of ants, and opts to leave his footwear on. He reaches down to salvage a bead necklace from the rubble, and dust spills out of his palms like falling meteors.

His backpack dislodges a slab of rotten wood, uncovering hordes of beetles tracing ravines in a weather-beaten shrine. Inside are spider exoskeletons, fabric paintings and spears with gnaw marks, and a tattered piece of canvas that appears to be a copy of the samurai code. He pries open a wooden case with kanji engraved on the cover and pulls out an asymmetric short bow and a quiver with arrows intact.

"The lake is nearby," Hakutaka informs him.

Javi sets down the lid.

The dirt path to the lake is steep and rocky, weaving in and out of a dense thicket nowhere in his map, and he takes precaution not to lag too far behind his travel buddy lest he veers into supposedly haunted ground.

Wait, where _is_ his companion?

"Hakutaka? Hakutaka? Where'd you go?"

There is no trace of anyone, not even the rustle of leaves. He scans the area. People do not just vanish into thin air, unless—

_Taken by the forest. Never seen again._

"Hakutaka?"

 _Okay, not good, not good._ Just ten minutes ago he was talking to someone. Ten minutes later and he is alone.

"Hello? Anybody?"

Five minutes. Fifteen minutes. He's going in circles. Twenty. Twenty-five. Thirty. He's passed this boulder four times.

One hour.

Two.

And it's official. He's lost. In a forest. Where mobile devices don't work.

_Uh huh._

His mind is screaming.

He rechecks the map. No luck there. The crude sketch in his hands is useless. The path ends in a cluster of sinkholes. He attempts to retrace his steps back to the village, but there are no footsteps, no markers, trees don't have valid IDs, the endless stream of birdsong is messing with his concentration, and he may or may not be on the brink of a panic attack. Belatedly, he tries to recall past lessons in backpacking and whatever documentaries come to mind.

 _Rule number 1: Stay calm_. It's just several hundred trees he has to make sense of, no big deal compared to the mess of Russian training camps that lurk in his nightmares to this day.

He trips over a tangle of gnarled roots and scrapes his wrist. He examines it for blood; thsre is none. The pulp of the earth is dark and crumbly on his fingers. He recalls someone mentioning a Forest of Death at the base of Fujiyama where ground branches warp like a labyrinth and the careless traveller could end up trapped for all time.

_But this is nowhere near Mt. Fuji!_

His heart is racing now. This is why he should have stayed at the Cricket Club and trained all summer. Spin class would have been a hundred times healthier than shivering to death in the woods.

His ears pick up the sound of gushing water, and with some difficulty he traces it back to the source: a waterfall gushing into rocks stained with minerals in hues of ochre to sienna. He splashes through the shallows, unmindful of the mud squelching under his heels, and finds a cavern on the other side.

It's enormous. The entrance is large enough for a human to walk through, expanding into a massive grotto filled with huge turrets and multi-level arcs and little streams of water trickling down the roof. Light has footsteps in this hidden sanctuary, illuminating a small pool with yellow beams rappelling down fissures in the ceiling.

If all else fails, this place would serve as an excellent shelter for the night.

Another drop breaks the surface of the water, rippling with more than just his reflection. Something…or someone else is here.

His fingers tighten their grip on the torch.

"Dare ka?"

His heart stops.

He spares one long glance behind him and sees a flicker of things both human and inhuman at once.

Could it be— one of the evil fairies in the legend?

 _"If they find you, you may never make it back alive,"_ the old lady had warned him.

The being creeps closer, sending Javi's mind into a whirlwind of panic. Part of him wants to befriend the stranger, but the other, instinctive part tells him to be wary. A glint of metal alerts him to the knife in the creature's limb, and he turns on his heel without thinking.

_Run._

_Run, run, run!_

Owl plumage and talons, dragon scale patterns on its back, eyes that belong in a safari. Jun's story got it wrong. This creature is a monster. He flees down the rock bridge to a source of light, to something. Back to the forest, to the maze of unhinged shadows where smokestacks and spindles rise from the spine of the earth. Howling fishing poles, a strange language of grunts and rustles, the breath of scarecrows on his nape.

"Dare ka?"

The creature edges closer still. It sounds almost feral, a voice made of fog and shattered glass.

_Run Javi! Run for your life!_

Twilight nears, the day's worth of exhaustion is catching up with him and his feet are stuck in liquid concrete. He curses the night raptor and grapples for a stick. If that monster wants to kill him, he won't go down without a fight.

Any moment now. Deep breaths. One, two, three—

 _There!_ He sees it—it — him. It's a boy. A boy with black feathers snaking up his arms. And his face was a blur of long, long hair and furious eyes but it looked like...like...

Yuzu?

What on earth is _he_ doing here?

Yuzu stares at him, cold and fierce, then stalks back into the thicket and disappears.

"Hey, wait!"

He's gone.

And Javi's mind is playing tricks with him. Because no, that boy wasn't Yuzu. It wasn't. Not at all.

But he could have sworn it was his twin.


	19. V

[Origin]

They call him the child of the storm.

There is a darkness— a vast, shifting dead sky in him born of all the people he never saw through the years. And inside, a boy gripped by the curse that turns souls into feathers, little frilled thorns that pierce through skin inch by inch until they swallow the bearer whole. His are shades of black and gray with scatterings of gold that he has long stopped plucking off.

They don't hurt, though. Nothing does anymore.

He curses winter with every feather-light stab of his heart. He wants spring, he hates spring, he hates every season that abandoned him to this realm of numb hands and feet and unheard voices. He hates and he _hates,_ for they took his brother, his younger twin christened after falling leaves and chrysanthemums, born under arrow-tipped stars, who tracks down honeybees and ladybugs and skips lessons to escort baby sparrows back to their nest.

He hasn't glimpsed his brother's face in eight years.

* * *

He finds the stranger on the day the sakura blooms. The tender branches have never flowered since his brother planted them, but now the wind is singing, and the fairy guardian of the forest appears in the midst of showers of coral pink.

"Go away."

 _Talk to him,_ pleads the lanky figure draped in salmon peach blossoms.

"Why?"

_What if he gets lost? What if he injures himself and can't get back?_

"If he dies, he dies. I do not care."

_Please. He needs your help._

"I don't need to help him. I don't need to do anything."

He kicks the tree. The fairy vanishes.

Again, all is quiet.


	20. VI

[Javi]

Javi's phone lights up as twilight casts its shadow upon the shifting mother-of-pearl sky. Still no signal. He crouches behind a dense clump of purple bushes and braces himself for the whirlwind of bats chasing away the last rays of sun.

Nothing.

Save for the birds and the bugs and the drunken trees, this place is way too quiet.

Right now he needs a place to spend the night. The cave is his best option; he just has to sneak inside, find a nice cozy corner to crawl into and hope no one disturbs him until morning. If the feathered _yokai_ creature shows up, a bit of survival Japanese and sign language should do the trick.

If not for the locks of hair that reached his chest and the weird bird garments Javi would have mistaken him for the defending Olympic champion. And then he'd really need a doctor's appointment. And another prescription for that cocktail of awful anxiety meds that helped him put up with Morozov's whims.

That, or there really is a living, breathing Yuzu lookalike in these parts whose hobby is dressing up like birds of prey and spooking poor lost tourists.

Javi reenters the belly of the mountains. Strangely, it seems warm enough in here without a fire going, but he builds one anyway. He rips open a packet of instant dinner between his teeth and watches the moon dip into the mortal realm, pouring silver dust from its ladle into the lonely hollows of the earth.

Tomorrow he'll have to figure out the way back with a useless map and no GPS to rely on. Which is fine, just fine; he's handled weirder situations before. Where's the version of himself who didn't mind missing plane flights because he was too busy catching up on sleep? The fearless troublemaker who crossed an ocean just for a chance to skate? He survived Morozov, didn't he?

He'll be okay.

* * *

"Javi? Javi!"

_Ugh._

This is _not_ okay; he wants nothing more than to sleep 'til next winter and a voice is urging him awake.

Javi groans and rolls over in the morning light. His bed is harder than steel and his neck feels just about to crack.

"It's too early, Yuzu," he mumbles hoarsely. "Tell Brian I'll be there in a few…minutes…"

Wait. _Yuzu?_

He sits upright in a flash. "Yuzu?"

The birds greet him. The embers from last night's fire glow where they lie. But there is no one.

"Yuzu? Are you there?"

He rubs his eyes furiously. _Of course not._

From a distance he hears the snap of a flagellant's whip. Vines sway to and fro, cutting streaks into the umbrella of sunlight prodding the moss floor. He takes a walk around. The place is huge and packed with architectural wonders he'd expect from a convention of avant-garde sculptors invited to run amok in a playground of abstractions and half-formed ideas. Whatever residual exhaustion he feels disappears as he explores this centuries-untouched treasury, lined with mineral gems that sparkle like the eyes of beggars in the night, all furtive glances and desperate to be seen.

There are signs of human habitation scattered about— wax build-up on ledges carved into the rock, rows of text, finger paint sketches. He runs his fingers along crude illustrations of birds and dancers and an oval blue blob which he suspects is a reference to the lake nearby. A vase-shaped formation bears a set of kanji he vaguely recalls from the bushido. He recognizes one of them.

 _Yu._ Courage. There's honor, duty, and integrity, though he can't tell which is which.

No crawling or squeezing for now, thankfully, as he further acquaints himself with the hive of tunnels. The temperature is indeed warmer the further he goes, probably due to geothermal activity. He turns the corner into a larger chamber, where a detailed map of Japan and Korea spans the flat portion of the cavern wall. But what use would this be in such a remote place? Unless these were battle plans—perhaps refugees from the last war to hit these isles? He scans the crevices for traces of a hidden armory and finds none.

The cave system proves to be larger than he expected. Rivulets of water tapering out of pits in the wall, a garden of mushroom stalagmites, colored rhinestones peeking out of tight, inaccessible places. There's a storage room of sorts. He pokes around and finds a few sacks of powdered crystal that glint when he shines his flashlight on them. More fissures in the ceiling, and then an open courtyard, blue skies and wooden trays full of swan feathers drying in the sun.

So maybe this place could have some connection with the legend.

"Hello?"

He feels his voice ricochet against the walls. Following the path of converging trickles, he reaches a small river at the mouth of the cavern where a circular wooden boat lies tied to a stake. No one's here, he's running low on food supplies, and there's a feeling in his gut pointing him in this direction. He grabs the paddle and takes a trip downstream.

The water is pristine and scary; it's clear enough to see the bottom, but he can't see a single fish or any kind of plant or animal life beneath the surface. Even insects refuse to hover around. It's as if it's dead.

The channel narrows, drifting back into another part of the tunnels. There's a whole wilderness out here, he realizes. The trees and cliffs wrap around him nauseatingly. He maneuvers around a tangle of roots and branches guarding the narrow entrance and accidentally bruises his arm on the rocks. He fumbles in his bag for his first aid kit, cursing his luck while struggling with his other hand to steer the boat back into broad daylight.

And then the boy from yesterday appears, standing on the narrow bank, looking exactly like a malevolent version of Yuzu. Javi feels shivers of lightning snaking down his back.

That glare unnerves him. It's terrifying.

_Hey Brian, I'm lost in a forest, can't find my way out and there's this guy here doing a blackbird cosplay who looks like he wants to murder me. I know you're busy now, but send help, maybe?_

The stranger tips his head to the side. Javi steps out of the boat apologetically.

"Sorry I borrowed your tub boat! I was gonna return it, I swear!"

The stranger's face is blank. It feels like he's silently judging Javi for his stupid mishap earlier— the way Yuzu seems to do sometimes when he shows up to practice with a hangover— and it's such a familiar look that for a fleeting moment Javi forgets where he is.

He mumbles a reply that Javi can barely understand. He catches _"chi"_ and _"kizu"_ and just enough to be sure the stranger isn't accusing him of being a thief. Now, if the guy would kind enough to give him directions…

"…hurt."

Wait. Was that English?

Yes it was.

It was.

It really was.

"You breeding," the Yuzu doppelganger repeats, carefully now, pointing to the claw-shaped gashes in Javi's left arm.

_Breeding. Breeding? Bleeding?_

"Your hand. In water," he says.

By all accounts, the water appears perfectly clean. But there's antiseptic in his bag, and it wouldn't be a good idea to risk an infection, especially here of all places, and—

The boy takes matters into his own hands. He tugs Javi's arm impatiently and submerges it, holding it underwater for a minute. Javi appreciates the concern, though he can't fathom what exactly the guy is trying to achieve, but the look on his face is one of immense concentration mingled with annoyance, so he holds his tongue and stays put.

He takes the opportunity to examine the other's features. The resemblance to the reigning world champion is uncanny, but up close he can spot the tiny differences. Sharper cheekbones, no cheek freckles, the hairline scar under the chin is missing, brooding eyes that stare too dark and too deep, and an expression that ranges from indifferent to downright menacing. In the dim light, Javi can't tell if the feather dress is a costume or not. He instinctively searches out seams and patches of fabric but finds none, as if the whole ensemble reaching to his torso was directly glued onto his skin.

A lot of _thank-yous_ and a few band-aids later and he's good to go. The stranger bends down to scoop water to his lips, and Javi takes it as a cue to refresh himself as well. As far as he knows, the water can't support life, but this person deems it safe to drink.

Good.

"So, my name's Javier. What's yours?"

The boy stares at him for a nerve-wracking eternity that makes all of Javi's hairs stand on end. Finally, with the scariest deadpan imaginable, he sort of hisses, sort of whispers his reply.

"Origin."

As a sign of his gratitude, Javi looks for some kind of thank-you gift in his bag and finds an unopened packet of trail mix in the bottom. "Hey, I was wondering if you happen to know the way to—"

He stops and looks around.

 _Unbelievable_.

Origin has already disappeared.


	21. VII

[Origin]

 _Come out,_ the stranger implores, and Origin returns to the shadows. He stalks away from the caves, smashing dried moth corpses under his feet.

Charcoal and smoke fossils litter the ground in testament to devastation. The Shinigami Forest is not to be trifled with. It is lonely and endless, devoid of hope and fraught with legends. Only those who have faced death can make a pact with it. How Javier made it this far, he can only wonder.

The man looked friendly— curious, yes, but friendly. It still doesn't excuse Origin's lack of caution earlier.

He gave the stranger his name, and he's starting to regret that.

" _Ori-gin, Ori-gin_ ," singsongs that high-pitched trill he associates with the spring fairy. The wind refashions its flute, and his mind conjures images of fresh silk and petals sewn together.

 _"You met him again! I saw you at the river,"_ the fairy announces gleefully.

Origin scoffs. "He stole my boat and got himself injured."

_"But he's not a bad person, right?"_

"No," Origin concedes. "He's clumsy."

The fairy smiles and begins to flicker again. _"Be nice to him,"_ he whispers, before fading out of Origin's consciousness.

He's gone before Origin can protest. _Alright,_ he decides, he'll be good to Javier for his fairy friend's sake. The fairy is kind and understanding, his presence grants Origin a respite from his past, and the sound of his breathy laughter blends into the ambience of the flower-streaked sanctuary.

Maybe he should have asked the fairy to stay a little longer. Come sundown and he's back to hating himself and his dreamscape for making him relive the day snow thundered down the mountain, swallowing everything in sight.

And his brother. He always dreams of his brother.

* * *

He returns to the camp with an angry stomach.

"Hey. Where have you been?" someone asks, desecrating the musical stillness of the air. He's the man they call Blackhead, nearly six feet of stocky arms and tattoos leaning by the rusty tailfin of a mangled fighter plane. He's one of the few Origin talks to, his language tutor by necessity ever since they crossed paths in the woods all those years ago. In these parts he's known as the engineer turned treasure hunter with a knack for carving and steelwork. Some of those figurines he gives to Origin. There's a family of whittled swans in a box under his bed.

"Free," he answers cryptically, but Blackhead understands nevertheless.

"Hang on, kid. Someday you'll get out of this hellhole," he says.

Origin grits his teeth.

"My grandpa fought kamikaze pilots, you know," Blackhead continues. "Shot down over the Pacific, survived, never told us how. Said he got third degree burns but everything was miraculously healed." He tosses a shovel at Origin's feet, which is his cue to resume the work he abandoned this morning to spy on Javier. "Well. Now we know why."

He pulls out a screwdriver and begins fidgeting with the base of an antenna. Origin doesn't bother with a response, raking mineral salts as though his life depended on it. He wishes the men would address more important issues. Like their dwindling food rations. And the tents that never got repaired since the last typhoon.

"Keep it up and I'll let you borrow my phone later. You know the drill. If anyone comes, shake him off your trail."

Origin bites his lip. The stranger— Javier— saw the feathers. He'll have to pay him a visit later and send him on his way before he gets a clue about their operations.

Or before the men find him.

He almost feels sorry for Javier. He looked lost and Origin could have given him directions to spare him further trouble, but there is something he needs to confirm before Javier leaves.

_Eight years is a long, long time._

He raises his head. From afar, he catches a faint whiff of sakura in bloom.


	22. VIII

[Javi]

Evening comes and goes. Yuzu's doppelganger won't show himself and Javi is nearing the end of his wits. This is not the vacation he imagined, trading hotel rooms for untamed walls of solid rock and playing hide and seek with the cave's resident phantom.

Someone will send a rescue mission, right? It's the twenty-first century after all; authorities would know if a tourist went missing, and the skating world would have to do something if a two-time world champion were to mysteriously disappear into thin air.

But can he survive on his own until then? This is no tropical paradise; there might be a limitless water supply, but he'd give anything for a soft mattress, and his food is down to one packet of trail mix. The one good thing is that his bruises from yesterday are completely healed. The gaps in the skin have closed up miraculously. Perhaps the water has a medicinal effect.

Back to the woods he goes, determined to trace the river to its mouth. Maybe he'll find someone who can give him directions. If Origin showed up twice there has to be a community nearby.

With the help of his compass he hikes uphill, hoping to retrace the path to where he and his last-minute tour guide split up. He reaches a tree graveyard above a bed of soggy clay and while slipping and stumbling and sloshing around he successfully manages to lose his smartphone.

 _Ugh._ Why, why, _why_ is the universe having so much fun at his expense? Just because he plans to use _The Impossible Dream_ for next season doesn't mean he needs a literal run-through of the experience.

He finds fish and water lilies in a forest pool. The water is a few degrees warmer; insects flit around in various shades from the tint ruby stick damsels to the much larger yellow-dotted dragonflies scouting out his knees like mini hovercrafts. So the water systems are separate; one stream has healing properties and the other is home to creatures that can fill his belly. He bunches up his trousers and wades into the shallows. He catches enough with a spare t-shirt for two meals.

The orchestra goes on, a blur of song, no singers. There is something about this place that leads people in circles. He's drawn sketches all over his notebook and still finds himself back where he started, at the entrance to another part of the caves.

He climbs inside. This isn't where he set up camp yesterday. The stalactites are dome-shaped and less massive, and no light filters through the ceiling, leaving him no option but to stay close to the entrance or drain the battery of his solar-powered torch. The passages are narrow and twisted and steep, perfect for a fortress and not much else. Jack Sparrow would have loved it here.

But Javi's a figure skater, not a pirate. The lack of human contact is getting to him. If only he could watercolor faces into the air.

He resorts to talking out loud, hoping some eavesdropping creature with the fiercest murder glare and the most questionable fashion sense on the planet decides to befriend him. He has no way of knowing if Origin hears his ramblings. The sun drops, dragging the moon up the giant celestial pulley, and he knots his fleece blanket into a royal cape, casting shadows.

His dreams that night are some of the wildest he's had all year. He dreams of Spanish knights and Japanese samurais skating in full battle gear. He jolts awake and dreams again, this time of an exiled swan with frostbitten wings sprinkled with gold and ash. The swan turns human at the strike of dawn and finally the cradle of sleep tips him over.

* * *

Another day, another excursion. He goes for a swim, then another round of hiking, towards the south this time.

Dirt bleeds all over his shoes again as he fights his way through prop roots and branches and creepers snarled upon each other in some sort of diabolical metallurgy. At last, after an ordeal of scratches bruised knuckles and several ripped threads in his shirt, he finds a trail leading to a cluster of huts and cabins and open-air tents.

_Finally._

It's a mix of local faces and foreigners that welcomes him. "You must be hungry," remarks a lady of South East Asian descent. She offers him a late breakfast of instant noodles. She crouches when she walks, and when Javi steps forward to take the wooden bowl, she flinches.

Strange. "Are you alright, Miss?" he asks.

Her eyes refuse to meet his, hiding the color of her irises. But they're fringed with red.

"Mawar," she stutters. Her dusty eyelashes flutter like butterflies against her sun-beaten skin. "That's my name."

More men come out carrying pans, bamboo steamers, and kitchen utensils, and one of them is the stranger he met in the caves.

Javi drops his fork.

Dark diamond eyes glare at him. Long sleeves hide his arms this time but the feathers peeking out from his collar serve as a reminder of the otherworldly origins of this person.

And no one seems bothered by this. At all.

"Does that boy live here?" he inquires around the camp.

"Him? I don't know much about him. He barely speaks. Some of these fellows taught him English. Why he sticks around is anyone's guess. Probably has nowhere else to go. Heard his own tribe kicked him out," says someone whose features bear a slight resemblance to Morozov. He introduces himself as Haerdun. He has two kids and forty healthy succulents.

Javi clenches his teeth. There was no mention of fairies whatsoever. Perhaps Origin isn't one of them at all, but rather, one of their victims?

"Poor thing. He's been through a lot. At least he survived. He's almost always gone, but he comes back every few days and reports to us whenever someone comes too close. I was surprised he didn't find you sooner."

After the meal, Javi volunteers to help with the dishes. He shells out a bit of cash and he has lunch, dinner, and future lodging secured. For the first time in three days, he can relax.

He finds Origin near the clotheslines, humming painfully out of tune and swaying to some strange dance like he's possessed while stripping feathers off a freshly-killed chicken. It's angry and violent and desperate and it sends pinpricks down Javi's spine. Origin's violet sleeves are hiked up this time, exposing the rows of feathers folded back like plated armor that only shift when the breeze ruffles them. In broad daylight, it's unnerving to watch.

Javi juggles a couple of strawberries. "So this is what you've been doing." He pops one in his mouth and misses.

A grunt is the only acknowledgement Javi gets. He can tell by the set of the other's jaw, the furrowed brow, the way his fingers curl around the blade handle— he's more agitated than the last time they met. Fortunately, years of training in foreign lands with strange tongues and even stranger people have taught Javi to be patient.

"Hey. Remember me?"

Origin finally lifts his gaze to him. It's sharp as ever, porcelain almonds encasing dark flint. He tugs his sleeves down and tucks his ears under a vineyard of black hair; sans that perpetual scowl, he looks almost normal.

Except those eyes. They're haunted.

"I'm glad you understand a little English. Saves me a lot of trouble," Javi continues. Origin doesn't bother to reply.

Maybe if he asks, _"Do you like skating?"_ Origin would grant him an actual response. He bets the boy can do a wicked hydroblade— or not. He banishes the thought immediately. No matter how similar they look, this stranger is not his training mate.

"It's really nice to have someone to talk to."

Still nothing. He'd have better luck introducing himself to the spiders in the kitchen. Which he did, actually; he named them _Don Juan, Pacardo, Manuelito, Salvador—_

"They teach me."

Oh, he's speaking now.

"I nothing else do after…"

"After?"

A village disappeared, Javi remembers. A hundred lives lost in an instant.

"Your family? Are they alright?" he dares to inquire, because hey, Javi never ever considered himself a genius.

The expression on the boy's face rearranges itself, and Javi takes a step backward. "Gone," he says, steel and cold fire as he lifts himself to his feet, and Javi releases the breath he didn't realize he was holding.

"I'm sorry." He thinks of something comforting to say but a cursed trio of roosters choose the moment to enter the scene. Someone with an axe calls Origin aside to explain the set-up of the new tents to him and he smiles, thin-lipped and polite.

There's a whole tragedy written in that smile.

* * *

He doesn't see Origin for the next two days. He needs to leave or his return ticket will be useless.

"Some of the men will be going ashore in a month's time. You can hitch a ride with them," Haerdun advises.

"A whole month?" Javi sputters. "I can't stay that long!"

"Suit yourself. See if you can get out on your own."

Javi can't, and they both know it.

"This is the Shinigami Forest. By now you should know what that means. There have been stories of travelers stuck wandering in circles until they starved to death." He pauses, turning thoughtful. "If you wish to leave, you must defeat the ten _oni_ guarding this place."

Ten what? Ghosts?

_Ghosts?_

The man laughs and punches him lightly in the shoulder.

"Stay here for a month. Then we decide."


	23. IX

[Origin]

The ice is unforgiving tonight.

Skating in the dark is never a good idea, but the noise of so many people is constricting. Around and around he goes, without his twin to keep him company, without the fairy to guide him. He knows this ice by touch and sound, like the caves, like the forest, like the hilltops butting heads with the horizon.

He skates until no inch is left unscarred, and every piece of him is burning, then he sits by the frozen lake and draws faces into the unripe moon and its train of allomorphic stars.

It seems like Javier is adjusting well to the rhythms of the camp, and it won't be long before he becomes one of them. It's a twisted sort of comfort to know someone else who cannot leave. At least his family remembers him. Origin doesn't have that luxury.

It's been eight long years since he lost his brother.

The seasons come and go with a willful blindness; he cannot stop the leaves from falling, and he cannot stick them back. He wraps his arms tight, tighter yet around himself, holding in what little remains as the chains of the past fall apart one by one and torn fingernails pierce into flesh marbled by throbbing shadows. Wingless clouds shapeshift around moonbeams, encaging him once more in an unending reverb of memory.

He closes his eyes and he's back in the old village, and everywhere he looks is bathed in daylight. The meeting hut of the council of elders. The trees he climbed when he was little. Their house. Mother's hammock, where they learned how to sew bits of seaglass and shiny stones into fabric to make it sparkle. His twin loved the sparkles so much he'd request the dance mistress to adorn all his costumes with them. And then he'd ask her to embroider some on Origin's too.

His ailing mother was from the mainland, and many would come to listen to her stories of buildings so high they dwarfed the tallest of the sacred trees, bridges sturdy enough to hold a thousand men, roads made of solid gray stone and four wheeled vehicles that drank oil from the bottom of the earth and coughed out smoke. The neighbors said she got sick when giving birth; she was young and frail and bearing twins sapped all her strength. The village healer believed she was cursed.

He remembers her wheezing gasps for breath as he gripped her hand, palm too tiny to stretch over her own. The changing weather always left her drowning.

"The world is a cruel place," she would tell him. "Don't trust anyone. There are so many out there who will hurt you, and use you, and promise you things that will never come true." She would pause to brace herself against the bed, chest heaving and a rasp escaping her throat, but no relief would come despite her struggles.

"My family was poor. I couldn't finish school. I was desperate for a job. I didn't realize how terrible were the things they would force me to do. They planned to take me to Korea, but when a storm forced the ship ashore, I ran away. Don't make the mistakes I did. And no matter what, look after your brother."

She died that week in the suffocating midsummer air, the concoctions from all the roots and bark and seeds and leaves no longer able to save her. Maybe if she had a husband someone could have taken care of her. Maybe she could have stayed a little longer. Maybe his brother wouldn't have cried so hard.

He never knew his father.

The greater the darkness, the more the stars. That's the way it is. Origin turns his gaze from the teardrop-filled sky to the traitorous mirror below. The light falls in silence, kissing the earth and the back of his shoulders, and steals the blooming numbness in his chest away.


	24. X

[Javi]

It's the waiting that lacerates.

If the next season were like any other, and not the one he'd been anticipating all his life, Javi could have been more patient. But this is the countdown to the Olympics, and even he, the top candidate for biggest slacker in the history of Team Cricket, isn't sure he can bear four more weeks isolated from practice ice, out of touch with the rest of the world, and completely dependent on a queer group of forest dwellers involved in shady transactions behind his back.

There are three phones in the camp, all password protected, with no signal anywhere within the forest proper, and two radios, none of which Javi is permitted to use. Of the five cabins, one has no windows and is kept permanently locked except when the leaders hold a meeting while two armed men stand guard outside. It's downright suspicious; their movements are a bit too calculated, too cautious for a regular business excursion, and more than once Javi wonders if he accidentally landed in the base of drug dealers, a band of modern-day pirates, or the mafia.

So much for chasing a legend. He's starting to regret everything about this trip. Sans Origin, he has yet to encounter anything resembling a dancing swan fairy. The enchanted lake is about as real to him as the fabled pot of gold over the rainbow. And his shirt has holes in it, but the kind Indonesian maid has been too busy all day for him to borrow a spare needle to mend with.

What he finds instead is a pile of used syringes in the garbage and not a single person with nurse's credentials.

He really needs to get out of here.

For whatever it's worth, he befriends everyone in the camp. He asks, pleads, bargains, offers all the money in his account and an all-expense-paid tour around Spain if they would escort him to the nearest town or even just point him on the right path, but they either shrug him off or recount a tale of some human-eating monster in the forest to explain why he shouldn't dare venture out on his own.

There has to be a way out. If there's one thing a lifetime of skating taught him, it's never to give up. So he tries again. He makes it as far as the dead river— an hour of walking and he's in some part of the caves.

And lost. Completely, utterly, irrefutably lost.

"Aaaauuuugggggghh!" he sort of groans, sort of screams at the jagged rock face. His muscles are dying. This is not, this is not, this is _absolutely not_ what he came here for!

He's seized by the urge to bang his head against the rocks. His previous coach said he's got a thick skull, right? A brain so dense nothing would get through? Well, now would be the perfect chance to test that. Now would be—

"Javi! Are you alright?" a voice startles him. It's Yuzu— Origin— his imagination— the _fairies?_

"Javi!" his name echoes and echoes and hey, now he's found a magical talking cave, too? Where's Prince Charming in this story? Where's the big bad wolf and the fairy godmothers? Where's his invisible flying ship to take him around the world with the power of dreams? Where? All he gets is a stupid cave and an evil forest and a weird, weird boy who—

—who could just be his ticket home.

"Look. There's the opening. Follow the river then turn left where it forks in two. Keep going until you see the three pine trees carved with crane wings. South from there are your companions," Yuzu's voice tells him. It actually sounds a lot like Origin, though less hoarse and less deep.

Maybe it is Origin after all?

"Thank you!" he calls back and this time there is no Yuzu-voiced reply.

* * *

Another day comes. It rains. His shoes leave tracks everywhere and he's running out of options.

"Please help me. I need to go home," he begs Origin the next time he catches him loitering around the camp. He doesn't bring up the cave incident; he figures if it was in fact Origin he had his reasons for staying out of sight.

Feathers whip around. Those murderous eyes burn into him again.

"Can't."

"Why not? I can't wait all month long! Please, at least give me a map. I just need to know how to get back."

Origin shakes his head.

"Why?"

"Cursed," he says, and he means it—he actually means it— and Javi loses his temper.

"Cursed? Cursed?! Everything is cursed?!" He grabs Origin's shoulders and gives him a rough shake. The feathers feel… strange. Coarser. Thicker. Inhuman. "You know the way out of this forest, don't you? Tell me, _please."_

Origin purses his lips.

"Why won't anyone let me go? I have a life out there! My coach will be looking for me! I got ice shows to attend! My family's going to worry and I…I'm missing out on training!"

Wow, this is an all-time low. Since when has he been so concerned about _missing out on training_?

"I need to— the Olympics is coming up and I really, really want that medal. Please, you won't believe me but I worked so hard for it."

"I can't help you," Origin repeats, eyes blank as the dead pile of firewood under his feet.

"You selfish brat!" Javi shouts, loosening his grip on the boy and shoving him away. He storms off to pick a fight with a trail of red ants. He's not missing out on the biggest competition of his life just because some caveman doesn't have a conscience. He doesn't know why he even expected this hermit to be his savior.

Maybe, he realizes after the brunt of his anger has simmered down a bit, it's because the person Origin reminds him of has always been someone he could rely on.

* * *

"I assume you came here for the fairies?" one of the group asks him during clean-up duty. His accent isn't American or British. French, maybe?

"I did. How'd you guess?"

"I've seen people like you. Ten or so of them, chasing spooky stories, bodies found in the forest after a week. No one's made it as far as you have, though."

"I had a companion. He took me to a village and then disappeared."

"Disappeared?" He snaps his fingers. "Just like that? Take your eyes off him for a moment and then he's gone?"

"Yeah."

"It's the terrain, I tell you. Navigation here is a nightmare. One minute you have it all figured out and the next minute you're lost. Did you honestly think it was the fairies who took him?"

"I don't know. Some call them fairies. Some call them monsters. Some call them ghosts. I'm starting to think they were poachers in camouflage who didn't like it when folks got too close."

"Nah, they weren't poachers or kidnappers or clowns or anything you might expect. Listen, I asked around and in the earliest versions of the myth those so-called fairies never even touched the frost. They hated the cold too much."

"So they didn't have powers," Javi concludes.

"Nope. But a few decades ago, traders brought shoes with toothed metal blades to the islands. They taught the tribesmen how to move on the ice, and from then on, they incorporated it in their dances."

"You mean they were skating?"

"Not the fancy stuff you see on TV, of course. It was quite simple, no big jumps or whatever they do in competition, but they did what they could with their crude hand-made skates."

"Then where'd they learn the technology? Could they have been getting supplies from Tokyo?"

"From Japan? Not in a hundred years. Come on, use your head."

"Korea?"

The older man snorts. "Sorry, sorry, I forgot you're not from around here. Well here's a tip: never underestimate Chinese businessmen."

"So, all this time they were skating?" Javi laughs mirthlessly. Even here, the love of his life finds a way to chase him down. "The stories aren't true? There are no fairies or magic swan lakes or anything?"

The other guy thinks for a moment before answering, "There _is_ a lake around here but aside from staying permanently frozen there's nothing too special about it. Unless you want the perks of an outdoor ice rink in summer."

"I'm from Spain. Not much ice-related stuff going on there," Javi points out.

"Figures. Your name's Javier, isn't it? Sounds familiar," the man remarks, scratching his chin.

 _Careful,_ Javi's instincts warn him. Kidnap-for-ransom schemes are not unheard of and his face has graced an international sports magazine more than once.

"Javier...the football player?" his companion guesses.

"Soccer," Javi corrects him, as the cold prickle up his neck calms down. "But yeah, I love it. Everybody at home loves it. I'm not a pro, though."

"Didn't think you were. You're a bit too…er…"

"Short."

"Right. So, Javier, but not the football player."

"Call me Javi." He shakes the man's hand.

"I'm Blackhead," the other says, lifting his cap to reveal a mane of flaxen hair. There's an eagle tattooed in black across his forehead, and the nose of an airplane visible at the back of his neck. "See you around. And take care of that kid, okay?"

"What kid?" Javi asks, but Blackhead just grins at him, flashing two rows of crooked yellow teeth.

* * *

This place is killing him. He comes back from a relaxing hour of cloud watching and the next thing he knows he's joining a rebellion.

_Huh._

"They think they can have this place. They think they own this. But never in a thousand years will we let that happen! It is our land! It is our home! Not Korea's. Ours! Our islands. Our heritage. Our people. Our future! No one will ever take that away!" their leader shouts in Japanese.

"What's he saying?" Javi asks, and Haerdun translates the gist of the speech. Javi groans in frustration, cursing his luck, and stupid legends, and his own curiosity that landed him in such a ridiculous situation in the first place.

It's a squabble over historical boundaries and he's caught in the crossfire. Spending his vacation stranded in the clutches of a rebel group was definitely not on his summer bucketlist. He'd rather fall hard on his butt eight times in front of a crowd of twenty thousand than get roped into an uprising over a territorial dispute.

Amid the noise of the gathering, Origin's eyes lock with his. _Talk to you later._

At least that's what Javi thinks he means.

The speech goes on and on. Javi doesn't bother with the rest of it. He heads for the kitchen to help with supper and waits for Origin to build a new squash trellis in his spare time.

"Hey. I'm sorry I got mad at you. That was wrong. Sorry for taking it out on you," he apologizes when the rallyists have dispersed to their stations around the camp.

"I not nice to Javier. My fault," Origin rasps, almost remorsefully.

"No, I got angry. You didn't deserve that."

"Javier could hurt and I not care before."

"But you do now." He extends an arm over the other's shoulder as a gesture of friendship, but Origin shies away from his touch. He wonders if he'll ever get to hug him, or if the boy will ever smile.

"So, about what happened earlier, it seems there's some kind of revolution happening here, eh?"

"Javier surprised? Everyone need protect something. Family, home, even archipelago."

Javi blinks dumbly. He's a skater, not an activist. A knight by virtue of costume only, and this is not the sort of battle he signed up for.

"Javier not understand," Origin remarks at his lack of reaction.

Javi's fingertips skim Origin's wrist, slipping over the feathers. "I think I do," he says, keeping his grip light. "I may not be a soldier, but I believe everyone has something to fight for."

His thoughts take him to Vancouver, to Sochi, to the endless possibilities in Pyeongchang. Him sprawled on the ice (from a Salchow, he knows instinctively) looking up at Yuzu on the podium, cherry branch extended like a peace offering as Javi misses a medal yet again. He lies there nursing the disappointment from his bitterest loss to date until Yuzu does that silly little headtilt that never fails to make him laugh.

"Javier?"

The lights of the arena disappear. His vision fills with a curtain of dark hair and brush-contoured eyes glowering like a prince on his throne of moss.

"You like pancakes, right?" Javi blurts out.

 _With strawberry syrup on top_ , his companion should reply, but he doesn't. Javi reminds himself that he does not know this boy.

Origin blinks in confusion, and when he looks at Javi again his eyes are unfocused, shining with the emptiness of faraway stars.

* * *

Javi is not a hacker. He doesn't work for an intelligence agency either, and now he's starting to regret it. If only his videogaming expertise could buy him a ticket out of this mess.

_Please, just let me call my family. I need them to know that I'm okay._

At least he isn't on his own here. Origin is always around somewhere, talking to the birds, the trees, the bugs, and it becomes a pastime to listen to those one-sided conversations. It strikes him that Origin is very, very lonely.

He's busy prodding one of his pet spiders when Origin rushes in one morning and tugs at his arm. "Javier come with me. I show you special place."

"Your secret hideout?" he surmises as he's being dragged off to somewhere in the winding thicket, and Origin's brows furrow soberly.

"No. My home."


	25. XI

[Origin]

Fairy footsteps tread lightly upon the mist drenched garden. The sun is up and Origin has just finished digging up a mound of yams. There's a patch of carrots next, and a row of eggplants before he moves on to weeding the new spinach transplants.

The fairy inspects the young potato tendrils, plucking off striped bugs threatening to chew through the tender buds.

 _"These vines look like noodles,"_ the fairy observes.

Origin side-eyes him. "I'm not stealing noodles for you," he announces.

The fairy flicks a half leaf with his finger. Two gray caterpillars go flying. Origin quickly stomps on them and the fairy flinches. He really does hate killing these things.

_"Fine. I'll ask your friend instead."_

"He's not my friend," Origin protests, tossing a rusty spade aside.

 _"Not yet,"_ the fairy tells him with a sly, knowing smile.

"He isn't. And he won't be. Ever."

 _"Some things take time,"_ the fairy says cryptically. He blinks out seconds later, leaving Origin to his pile of red-violet roots and squirmy bird food.

That was a week ago. Now he's taking Javier to his favorite part of the island.

How time changes things, indeed.

The path slopes steeply uphill; he helps Javier dig his feet into the soil and pebbles until they reach the rotting wooden steps to where a stone platform and damaged houses testify in silence to his faded glory. People once adored him, once heaped praises when they watched him dance. Now there is only him, and this semi-stranger, and the ruins.

The recent rains have washed away the soil he packed into a mini terrace. Javier stumbles while reaching for the weathered handholds and grabs Origin's arm for support, accidentally pulling loose a few of his feathers.

"Sorry," Javier apologizes, staring at the paper thin pieces in his palm with wonder. His gaze is soft and curious, no longer apprehensive, nothing like the way everyone stared cruelly at Origin's feathers, the way they stared at his beautiful, dying mother.

Javier bounces the feathers on his fingers and blows, watching them float away in the careless, forgetful wind.


	26. XII

[Javi]

It's the forsaken village. His wild goose chase has led him back to the rubble. Same place, different companion, same clueless Javi.

Then Origin gestures to the few standing huts surrounding the deserted shrine and something finally clicks.

"You lived here?" Javi asks, incredulous.

Origin nods.

"Isn't this where the dancing swan fairies— who weren't really fairies— so they couldn't possibly have cursed anyone— wait, if you're from here, can you— can you _skate?"_

"I with them who dance on frozen lake," Origin relates. "People say we have wings because very fast on ice, but I not true fairy, have no power. My brother also."

"You have a brother?" He's about to ask where the other guy is, but Origin's expression sours instantly.

_Oh no._

"Did he… pass away too?"

"He alive. But not here. Far, far away." He pushes open the shrine door and Javi follows behind him, letting his eyes wander the bamboo walls and ceiling as he reacquaints himself with this place. Origin uncovers a compartment under a tatami mat and retrieves a pair of handsewn leather boots with oiled metal strips strapped to the soles. "These brother's skates," he says fondly.

Javi lifts one up. The blade is thicker than what he's familiar with. A lot more dull, too. He runs his thumb along the worn brown leather riddled with cracks, taking time to appreciate the vintage design likely dating to the eighteenth or nineteenth century trade routes. If merchants used to ply these waters freely, it wouldn't have been impossible for locals to obtain these supplies too.

Origin rummages through another chest and gingerly pulls out a pair with whalebone runners.

"Now _that's_ ancient," remarks Javi, surprised by the sight of such a relic in this remote place.

"Village make long ago, before use metal," Origin explains.

He proceeds to show Javi a newer, modern-looking black pair that he might have gotten from someone in the camp. They're not Edea Pianos or Graf Edmontons, but they look good and sturdy, and once again Javi finds himself missing his home rink in Toronto.

"I guess those are yours?"

A quick nod is the reply he gets. Dusting off his pants, he watches Origin check the other ceremonial artifacts preserved behind folding screens and cleverly disguised wooden boxes. Javi notices his gaze linger on the bow and quiver. They must have had some personal significance before the disaster wiped out everything.

With Origin's permission, Javi takes his time exploring the sacred building. He finds gold bells and kimonos with hand-painted cranes and egrets. One of the chests has a stack of porcelain bowls and another hides incense sticks and jars containing various spices. When he gets back to Origin, he finds him brooding over a set of bamboo flutes.

"Come," Origin invites him, packing the flutes away except one, which he hands over to Javi. "I show you."

"Where are we going?" Javi inquires, tucking the instrument into his makeshift knapsack.

"To lake. Javier is scared?" Origin teases him.

"Scared of what?" retorts Javi, but Origin is already making his way out the door.

Javi is not exactly a fan of mountain climbing, yet when they do reach that place, it's breathtaking. There's not a hint of snow around but the water is rock solid. The sun's rays slant toward them, casting an ethereal glow on the pristine ice. This is what he came for. This is the heart of the legend itself.

"I can't believe this! It's frozen!"

Origin casts his gaze across the horizon to the point where earth and ice fuse together. "It magic," he says.

Well. Javi theorizes it's some effect of the mineral content, the same reason for the fishless stream and colored rocks by the waterfall. But they can't all be scientists, can they?

Origin laces on his boots, and Javi feels a swell of nostalgia. He unleashes himself on the ice like a prism on a blank canvas, painting swirl upon swirl upon swirl on it. And it is beautiful, so beautiful.

 _Swan Lake,_ Javi decides, _was never meant to be a ballet._ No swans, no magic, no curses. Just skates. The prince comes and he sees Odette on her frozen lake, and he longs to joins her, and he learns to skate. Free as birds they go, a perfect ball for two, nature's own whisperings in the outdoor dance hall.

This is skating as it was always meant to be, stripped of records and scoresheets and the silverscreen cage of flashing cameras. Freedom.

"You're amazing," he compliments Origin, who, he suspects, is showing off for the occasion. "You're much better than most guys out there." _Most,_ because he's seen Yuzu, and nothing really compares.

"I need be stronger," Origin says with such determination that Javi remembers _why_ exactly he lost at Worlds.

Now where has he heard that before?

_I need to reach that sun and surpass it._

_I have the ice to myself. That's all I need._

_No it isn't,_ Javi would answer, knowing his rinkmate would never listen. It brings a chuckle to his face even now.

Origin skates with that same intensity. A sheen of sweat all over his face, brows dripping from overexertion. But no smile comes to his lips.

It feels wrong, somehow.

As far as Javi knows, there should always be laughter to accompany skating. At open practice, in the galas, back at the club. Even with the rivalry going on, through the worst days and the hardest training, when blades would slip and jumps wouldn't work, when they struggled not to trip on their feet while attacking choreo with a ferocity that could melt the rink, there was always warmth.

Origin's face is too solemn.

"You know, you remind me of someone," Javi tells him. "He's a Japanese skater and he's…he's the Olympic champion. He looks like you and he loves skating and he has some really cool moves, like this —" He positions his legs and arms for an Ina Bauer, bending backward as far as he can. It's nothing compared to the sheer majesty of Yuzuru's layback, but he tries anyway. "And then he does this!" He snaps his feet into an off-ice single axel and follows it up with a high kick. "And also—" He demonstrates a pancake spin to the best of his ability, straining to raise his elbows in an awkward imitation of Notte Stellata, and it's all he can do not to topple over.

Origin's blades skid to a halt before him. "Javier Fernandez. It really you," he breathes, eyes wide with excitement.

Now Javi's confused. "Uh yes? I told you my name already?"

"Ha-bi," the boy repeats. "You win world championship. You train in Canada. Brian O-ser is coach."

Okay, that was unexpected. Origin actually recognizes him. The events of Boston and Shanghai must be even more famous in Japan than he thought.

"I bet you know my training mate, then."

"He my brother. Twin brother," murmurs Origin, in words so quiet Javi has to lean closer to catch them.

"He's what?! Your twin? Wait, wait, hold on a second! I've been rinkmates with that guy for five years and he never mentioned he had a twin brother!" Javi exclaims, feeling betrayed and confused all at once. "And why would Yuzu leave you here all by yourself?"

"He don't remember," says Origin. His voice is hoarse. He sits and plucks the bamboo flute sticking out from Javi's bag and tosses it in the air nonchalantly.

"What? Why?"

"They make him forget." The flute is spinning in Origin's fingers like a compass gone haywire.

"Who? How? And why would they do that?"

The flute topples out of his grasp and rolls to a stop. Origin picks at the laces of his worn out boots, fighting and failing to keep the emotions from flickering through his eyes. "It long story."

"Tell me," Javi says, reaching for the small of his back to ward off the sadness that's beginning to creep into his expression. Origin is still skittish with human contact, but he looks badly in need of a hug, so Javi rubs soothing circles at the base of his spine upwards to his shoulder. He doesn't cry, but Javi hears the pain all the same.

"It's okay. S'okay," he comforts the boy, who thankfully isn't wheezing the way Yuzuru would when overcome with emotion. "Let it all out." He uncrosses his legs and inches closer. "I'll listen."

For the first time, Origin breaks.


	27. XIII

[Origin]

_"Mother?"_

_"Yes, Ori?"_

_"Why don't we have a father? The other children have fathers. All my friends have fathers. But Otoñal and I don't. Why?"_

_"It's because you are special."_

_"I heard the village elders say that twins are cursed. Is that why?"_

_"No. Whatever you hear about the curse is not true. You are not cursed. Nothing bad will happen to you or your brother."_

_"Then why don't we have a father? Does he not love us? Did he go somewhere far away and get lost?"_

_"Listen, Ori, I will tell you a story. When I was younger, my family had no money. I tried to look for work, but it was very hard to find a job because I did not go to school. Finally a group who said they were doctors offered to help me. They needed someone for a special project and all I had to do was follow orders and keep everything a secret. They took me to a strange room and put me to sleep and made me have a baby. I was very afraid but they promised to pay me when the baby was born. Then, one day, bad men took me and the other girls to a ship. They tied us up and gave us little food. On their way to Korea, they stopped by this island, and that night I stole a knife and ran away into the forest."_

_"Then you came here?"_

_"I was exhausted. I thought I would die. But a kind woman found me and brought me to this village. The elders gave me a house and let me stay. Months passed, and I learned I was carrying twins."_

_"Me and Otoñal?"_

_"Yes."_

_"The woman who saved me died soon after you were born. I never left this place ever since."_

_"Don't you miss your home?"_

_"I do, sometimes. I miss my family. But the outside world is hard. Here we are safe. Here we will not starve. The village will take care of us. So do not be sad, my son, even if some people are mean to you because you were born twins, to an outsider, and have no father. You and Otoñal are my precious, wonderful children and nothing will ever change that."_

_I love you_ , said his mother with calloused hands and a gentle voice and nighttime stories of a big and strange world where metal boxes could speak and people had tiny suns in their homes that stayed awake forever. Yet she died, and his brother left, and disaster came, and there was nothing precious or wonderful about the world anymore.

Days like these find him missing her even harder. If only she wasn't taken from them so soon, if only she wasn't always sick, if only he knew how to cure her, maybe this would never have happened. Maybe his brother would still be here. But people who have gone cannot be dragged back. He is alive, and he is alone, and altogether he has enough regrets to fill up an ocean.

* * *

_Late Spring, 2009..._

The mountain is not quiet this morning. Fourteen cycles of the sun have passed since the twins' birth, and today the finest dancers in the land take their place before the Council of Elders for the annual rendezvous with destiny. The villagers gather upon the shores of the lake to watch a test of strength, agility, finesse, speed, and endurance, young men and women pitted against each other and the cold-steeped forces of nature. _The Mime of the Feathered_ , the most sought after, most highly revered of their dances. Stars weep and zephyrs still with the groaning of blades on the treacherous glassy platform between sky and water as legends are challenged and human forms take on wings in the pinnacle of art in these isles.

The elder rises. "Today a conqueror shall emerge— the best, the bravest, the true master of the dance. The ice be our witness."

The mist clears and they commence, enshrouded in dark and light and the weight of the future. Origin unfolds his arms, shattering the tranquility of the moment, and the air echoes with his voiceless cry. He reaches for the heavens, envisioning a whirlwind's descent, pitchblende tendrils lashing at the ground, scathing panther eyes and viper fangs.

Otoñal performs _The Flight of Golden Arrow_ s, a masterpiece graceful as Origin's _Blade of Four Typhoons_ is fierce. He weaves around like a musician plucking his harp, tracing secret paths across the frozen lake. Wind in his steps, fire in his eyes, he glides and twirls and spins, like fog rolling off mountain peaks, the sway of meadow flowers, the yearning fingertips of dusk.

Origin is the eye of the storm, milk lava streaks on burned violet. Raw lightning alights on his shoulders as he rises out of the earth, cradled in shadows and armed for battle. Otoñal is the glittering rain washed sky, crystalline ether painting the world anew at the first gasp of dawn.

The crescendo unfolds as Origin powers through the music, hurling himself into every beat, but Otoñal understands the turns of the calligraphy brush, deft strokes and unfathomable patience. Origin twists backward as the winds batter him down, and his feet slip, breaking that steely precision he's worked on for so long. There are doubts cracking him apart, because maybe in stamina they expect him to be better, but the sheer determination Otoñal wields is formidable.

Now there are only two left. Twins, brothers, each other's greatest competition, and Origin will not give up. He flings himself into the sky with the force of years of striving for perfection and the ice spreads out beneath his feet like a net that refuses to catch him. The world shifts and crashes and he falls.

A stunned gasp from the crowd punctuates the silence. Origin clutches his ankle, feeling a sharp pain tearing at his leg. Otoñal's face is pale. No one was expecting that.

The barking drums salute their new champion. "Fate has spoken today! The true master has triumphed!"

And then that smile grows impossibly cold.

"The greatest dancer, the only worthy offering. I present to you, our tribute to the sea!"

* * *

In the deep mountain forests of Tsushima, there is a tradition that every ten years the best of the men will be sacrificed to the ocean in exchange for a bountiful year and protection from its wrath. The chosen one is gifted with a white robe adorned with abalone shells and put to sleep. All memories of his life on land are erased; when he awakens, he obeys the call to dance forever in the sea dragon's palace.

Like a slave. A pawn.

The arguments go on.

"Is there no other? Shall we get rid of our best dancer?"

"He is one of twins, cursed from the womb, how can he be worthy enough? Offer another."

"Do you wish to incur the sea's wrath?" the others protest, fearing the consequence of desecrating the pledge.

"I wish we both won," says Otoñal dejectedly, twirling the shaft of an arrow. He's finished polishing the new bow that he never learned to use; now there is nothing left to do but sit and accept his fate.

He's doing a better job than Origin. Origin just came from a screaming match.

"I wish we both lost," he spits out.

"You said losing means death," Otoñal reminds him, hugging his knees. The muted blues on his clothes look sad. Everything looks sad. "We'll see each other again, right?"

"Yes," promises Origin. "I'll find you."

"I'm sure I'll remember— I mean, how could I forget? We'll find a way out of here, and then we'll travel. Tokyo? America? China? We can visit the equator. And the North Pole. I want to meet those penguins Mother told us about," his twin says to cheer him up.

Origin doesn't know how to reply to that. Otoñal is brave, bravest, braver than he is.

He shakes his head against the cruelty of it all. No more ice hitching on to Otoñals boots, or tracing the imprints of falls on his arms, never again can he watch the sun bite the turquoise flesh of the ocean, never will the browns and grays of the earth lodge into his fingernails. It's goodbye and it's unfair, and it makes him sick.

"Keep my skates," Otoñal says. "So they won't be lonely."

"We can still run away," declares Origin in sheer defiance, slipping a blade into his pocket. If he could just distract the guards, maybe he could whisk his brother out of here. The life of a refugee would be less appalling than this.

Or they could both die. That way no one gets left behind.

"Someone must be left to carry on the legacy. There is nothing we can do," says Otoñal, with all the sadness in the world for all the things he'll never be, all the dreams he'll never reach. "I'll go."

Origin pummels his fist on the earth. A clear winner is what he always wanted, but not like this— counting how much longer they can fool themselves, how many golden threads of hope can burn out before sundown. They should have escaped a long time ago. Now it's too late.

The door of the tent opens. Two men restrain him; one drags his twin out. And then he sees his brother for the last time, unsure smile steadying to resolve, wind whipping up his hair as he presses his heel on the last bit of sand left for him to cross over.

Now, there is nothing but anger stirring within, waking up from the muck of the swamp, from the abysmal wastelands at the heart of the sea. It festers, black venom, scorpions and swords aflame. From this day onward, he stops ripping off his feathers.


	28. XIV

[Origin]

They pass by the shrine on their way back to camp. Origin shows Javier two sets of special robes folded away at the bottom of a musty oak chest; soft, dyed fabric spills out of the wood, pulling forth scents and scenes of that fateful morning. Passionfruit violet arced with midnight's gold and silver, flowers dripping poisoned ambrosia. The other, blue of the sky, blue of the ocean, ice daggers, seam twisting front to back between fused jigsaws of silky chainmail armor.

They're light on his arms and his heart is heavy.

"Guard take Otoñal away, give him drug to sleep and forget. I couldn't… can't… not do anything. They carry to sea and put on raft and float far away with most precious thing. He not choose skates, only bow and arrow. I thinked he drown. Cannot be alive, everyone say. But he survive, become famous. I see picture. Win competition, you there also and wear amulet prize on neck."

 _Medals,_ he remembers. They called those shiny disks _medals._

Javier's eyes widen. "That's why you helped me. You remembered me from the pictures."

"I not sure if you really that Javier. But I hope." His nails curl into the contours of the chest's handle. There's a discarded egg case stuck to the dents in its worn fibers.

"Memory loss, huh. No wonder he rarely talks about his childhood." Javier's voice is sad and contemplative. "Except the earthquake. He always talks about the earthquake."

"Earthquake very bad. Snow fall down mountain, destroy everything. Ice lake remain but snow gone, village gone." His stomach clenches even now. Perhaps it will always hurt to remember.

"It devastated the Eastern coast, you know?" Javier folds his arms, reminiscing. "I was in Japan and it was everywhere in the news. Yuzu was lucky to survive." He shifts, drumming his thick fingers on the lid. "But I didn't know the damage reached all the way here. How did you get away in time?"

"I want die but someone save me. He say I too young, must not die. He don't know I bad twin. He don't know people die because of me. Earthquake because of me. Brother leave because of me, because we twins! I should not born in world. Better if I— if I— not live," he chokes. Javier's palm flies to his shoulder, steadying him with its gentle pressure. His eyes fill with rain again. "I not tell Blackhead whole story. He help me, let me stay, teach me about outside world, make wood toy so I not lonely."

"Hey, come here."

It's not an order. Origin hesitates.

Javier gently draws him in by the waist and pats his cheek affectionately. He flinches. It's the first real taste of human contact he's had in so long, and he hates, hates the world for all it stole from him.

"You know," Javier says, and his voice is so kind, so soothing, "when I became World Champion in Boston, it was because Yuzu was injured. He didn't tell anyone, and I was too busy worrying about my boots to notice. But he fought like a soldier to the very end. Your brother is the bravest person I ever met."

A hint of panic wedges into Origin's chest. "He alright?"

"Don't worry, he recovered. You'd have thought all those near misses would have scared him off but no. He's much, much stronger now than ever before."

There is fondness and respect mingled with admiration in those words. Otoñal has always had that effect on others, even on his competitors. And just like that Origin finds himself missing his brother again.

"He best always," he tells Javier with pride. "No one in all tribes like him, no one good as him.

"Superstar. One in a million athlete. National treasure. _I know_ ," Javier chimes in, with a hint of self-mockery in his tone.

He understands the feeling. "Otoñal always better."

"He is."

"Better than me."

"I guess."

"Better than you."

"Well that's one thing we have in common. I lost. You lost. We're even."

Javier reaches for his right hand and squeezes it. "It's how we say congratulations," he explains, when Origin's brows ride up in confusion. "Congratulations for losing to the greatest skater on earth."

Origin's grip on Javier's fingers tightens, he helps turn the gentle shake into a furious looping wave until they get tired and break apart. It's a nice sort of sympathy. His chest feels lighter now.

"Fairy was right," he admits. At last he believes, truly, in his heart, "You not bad person."

"Thanks," replies Javier, now helping him gather up the cloth and fold it. "So when we met you thought _I_ was the bad guy."

"I think you silly. You scream much."

"You _scared_ me!" Javi protests. He mumbles something about attacked hearts.

"I look scary?"

"You— no. Not anymore. I uh... I like your hairstyle."

He brushes his locks self-consciously. "Otoñal hair like this too. Before."

"Really?" Javier gapes.

Origin nods.

"No way. That's long! Longer than mine used to be! Ugh. No wonder they said he looked good in that stupid movie wig."

The outdoor lights flicker with a passing cloud, and Origin allows himself a wish. "I want see my brother again. Even if he not remember."

"You will," Javier assures him. The rest of it is drowned out by the noise in his ears and the swell of relief setting his lungs free.

He wipes away the last of the sniffles. Through the cracked window, the horizon looks like a garden of bluebells in bloom.

* * *

The days afterward fall into a routine. He takes Javier to the caves. They go fishing. He skates. Javier sings in a language Origin doesn't understand. Sometimes Origin dances.

He asks Javier to dance with him, and the movements are strange and fascinating. Javier claps and slaps his chest and his thigh, calling it one of Spain's famous dances, and turns himself into a human kettledrum. Then he struts like a rooster, does something that imitates birds preening their feathers. Now his feet move like an albatross.

It looks fun. Origin can't wait to learn it.

The best part is when Javier tells him stories. About the boy who flew too close to the sun, the trickster pirate lord and the ship trapped in a bottle, the old man who fought windmills. Stories about Otoñal (he loves those the most), stories of his coaches and rinkmates and fellow competitors. He talks about his life in Spain and Canada, about how the crowds cheer louder in Japan, the excitement of winning his first world championship medal, the proud faces of the family he left behind. Origin gets to know the boy in the banana costume so big he'd topple over, the displaced teenager assembling furniture by candlelight and eyes blurred with tears.

And other things. Planets. Robots. Spaceships. Dolphin shows. Ferris wheels. Rodeos.

"Long, long ago there were huge dinosaurs on earth. There was one that could fit three of you in its mouth and crush you with its sharp teeth! Some had necks as long as a bridge. And some could even fly!"

"Big as tree?"

"Bigger!"

"Big as mountain?"

"Maybe not _that_ big."

"No flying mountain dinosaur."

"Er… no. But the pteranodons had wings bigger than any bird you have ever seen!"

"Like air-planes?"

"Exactly! Mini airplanes."

"So, many years ago, monster birds in sky. People ride them too?"

Jacier scratches his head. "Well… you see…"

Eventually Javier runs out of stories. But Origin doesn't mind. He has his own tales to share.

"I tell you about feathers. Javier is curious, right?"

Javier sits down eagerly and he pieces together fragments of the past the best he can.

When he was born, Mother said, there was a tiny flesh-colored feather on his back. When he was six he grew two more— darker, at the back of his neck and over his left knee. He ripped them off, leaving behind scarlet welts. The next month two more sprung up in their place. Another year, another feather, and the faint sting of needles. When he was ten there were ten of them, mole-dark; at eleven he grew a ring around his ankle. It was the curse, he decided, and cut them down with a knife.

At twelve he had phantom pinpricks in several places, at thirteen more scars than he could count. At fourteen he vowed to keep them as a reminder of his loss.

He was sixteen when the avalanche tore through his home and in the frenzied scramble he forgot to hide the latest growths. A half-formed black feather, followed by another, and another, _marks of the snow's hunger_ they said, horror rippled through the survivors and he was cast away.

_"Bring my daughter back, you monster!"_

_"Our homes are gone!"_

_"Cursed twins after all!"_

Every one of them, fear and disgust in their faces, demanding retribution, wanting him dead. He ran, and he ran, taking refuge in the sullen forest, for he was not their blessed fairy anymore.

He hates these feathers. He wants to kill them.

"It's not your fault." Javier hugs him strong and tight and he weeps for lost chances and lost people and so many, many things.

He clenches Javier's shirt.

"It's okay, it's okay. I'm here," Javier assures him. He is not a stranger now, not the person he only knew as Otoñal's rival. _Friend,_ he says. _I'll be your friend._

Origin tries to smile. It's been so long that he fears his mouth may twist the wrong way, but Javier smiles back, soft and warm, and he feels brave.

"I want skate with Javier," he says, gesturing to their secret haven.

Javier grins. His fingers stir messy whirlpools in Origin's hair.

Something in his chest is thawing. And so there is no silence.


	29. XV

[Javi]

Warbling flutes scatter through the forest. Origin's eyes take on that faraway look Yuzu has when in deep thought, absently plucking off a feather at his wrist with none of the care his brother dedicates to his Notte Stellata costume. Not all the feathers are pitch black, Javi notices. Some of them are ash gray. Some are _golden._

 _"Yuzu,"_ he confides to the sparrow-marred stillness. "Your twin, we call him Yuzu— you know, the yellow fruit? It wasn't my idea but it's cute. In Japan they know him as Hanyu Yuzuru."

"Bowstring. It's good name for archer," he remarks.

Javi chuckles. Every crazy little part of the Olympic champion has some profound meaning attached, from those dark cygnet eyes to the three-cornered rice cakes he eats. He wouldn't be surprised if the very alignment of the guy's hair strands was predicted in some tenth century astrology chart.

"How about you? I bet you have a nickname too."

He does not, Javi learns. His mother had terms of endearment for her twins, but he forbids Javi to use it.

"How about… _Yu?"_ he suggests, avoiding the other's flat stare. If Yuzu were here he'd be judging Javi for his dire lack of originality.

He remembers a slip of cloth with kanji written on it to greet him after his triumph at Boston. _It means excellence and the pains of isolation, because they always go together,_ Yuzu explained in the privacy of hotel elevators. He hopes he pronounces it correctly.

"Oh I know! Yuushuu."

 _"Yuushuu?"_ Origin looks horrified.

"Yeah. _**O**_ toñal, _**O**_ rigin. _**Yu**_ zu, _**Yuu**_ shuu. See? Twins!"

Origin is not amused.

"What?" Javi asks, holding back a laugh. "It's a great idea!"

"No good."

"Yuushuu," he teases.

"Stop call me that!" And he's all riled up.

"Yuushuuuu!"

"Is not my name!"

 _"Habiye_ isn't mine either!" He grins as Origin's eyes take on a distinctive gleam and his face smoothens into a mask of intense concentration.

"Ja-vi-er."

Origin's pronunciation is almost flawless. Javi's impressed.

"Someone's been practicing. Good job, _Yuushuu,"_ he says, and it wipes the smirk off Origin's face.

* * *

It goes like this, Origin leads the way and Javi does his best to memorize the patterns of trees and bushes they come across. They talk about all kinds of things, Javi patiently explains and Origin tries to make sense of it with his limited English, but try as he might, no amount of pleading or wheedling or fishing for information can make Origin spill a clue of where the paths lead beyond that.

He _knows._ He knows but he isn't saying anything.

_Why?_

_Is that what they're keeping me here for? Reinforcements? Are you on their side too?_ Javi aches to blurt out, but stops himself. His mouth has already gotten him into so much trouble before. He doesn't think he'll survive a repeat of the trauma at Sochi.

His companion's thoughts are on a completely different tangent. "This place have music," Origin tells him. "Do you hear?"

Music? He hears the birds. He hears the leaves. He hears the wind pouncing on everything.

"Look Javier," and Origin talks of faces in the woods. "Javier do not see?"

No, he doesn't.

"Fairy in the flowers, Javier cannot feel?"

No, he can't find Origin's invisible friend, and he'd rather not imagine a winged tree-dwelling creature into existence at the moment.

 _"You lack sleep. You have vivid daydreams. Here, take these pills to help reduce your anxiety…"_ some doctor would say. He shivers at the mere thought of having another of those appointments, ever again.

Origin seems puzzled, but he stops bringing it up.

The trail they're following takes them to the caves. Javi whips out his nearly dead flashlight and Origin steps into the semi-darkness, retrieves a few pieces of flint from a hollowed-out crevice, and proceeds to light a row of candles.

"Stay here? I don't want go back yet," Origin confesses.

"Mind if I go explore some of these tunnels a bit?" Javi throws a concerned glance over his shoulder at the silhouette of half-man, half-boy staring blankly at the cave ceiling.

A feeble nod is the only reply Javi gets. He borrows an oil lamp and descends into a nearby chamber. Origin hugs his knees.

* * *

Javi finds arrow shafts in one of the ledges. He finds a knife, chunks of flint, and a fan with a painting of a tiger and phoenix and an inscription in Korean.

It was the Mao-Yuna rivalry that introduced him to the historical enmity between the two nations in the far east. How Japan conquered Korea and sold the young and pretty ones as slaves. Tsushima is smack in between, and there would likely be among the merchandise, children and prostitutes, exchanged back and forth and never remembered. He suspects the maid Mawar is one of them. Perhaps Origin's mother was too.

He returns to find Origin running his fingers along a map of the hemispheres carved on the wall. In the candlelight, the chasm between the continents looks impossibly deep, and he crosses it with his pinkie.

"This Canada," he says matter-of-factly, as if it's a mystery he spent the entire past hour figuring out. "My brother stay here?"

"No, he's in Japan now," Javi answers, pointing to the main island of Honshu. "We're scheduled for the Fantasy on Ice tour."

"Fantasy on Ice?"

"The biggest ice show in Japan. You'll see a lot of big names in the sport there."

"I want go. I want watch other people skate." There's a mix of innocence and longing in his voice, and Javi wishes he owned a private jet so he could fly Origin to the ends of the earth.

"Alright, let's go. Just show me the way out of here."

Origin shakes his head dejectedly. "Can't."

"Why not? Don't you want to meet your brother? If you're worried about your condition, we…we have doctors there. They can help."

_Please, please, please, say yes._

He looks crushed. "Medicine not work. Only one thing work."

"Yuushuu," Javi breathes, one final plea.

Origin curls into himself. His knuckles tighten as palpable despondence ripples through the tainted marigold swerving down his back. "Can't leave. Legend should not die. Must teach someone before feather curse kill me someday."

"Is that why you work for them?" Javi asks, gripping his shoulder softly, ever so softly, for surrounded by shadows the feathers look like trembling, fragile things.

Origin bristles at the touch, but he sighs and relaxes in Javi's hold. "No. Just food and some things. Blackhead sharpen my blades. And when boots destroy I need new pair."

_And because the loneliness was too much, even for you._

"Must stay," he resolves. "So not spread curse to brother. My fault anyway. This punishment, for want too much, want be like stars."

He looks young and ancient, a mere scapegoat of coincidences and natural disasters. And stubborn too. Try as he might, Javier cannot convince him that the earthquake was, in fact, a consequence of being at an infamous center hub of plate tectonics, not the act of vengeful nature spirits.

They sit in silence for an hour, maybe more. Javi twirls a stick into the water and Origin piles on stones like a memorial. It's instinct now. Build a home out of the madness. Make a sandcastle in the middle of the ocean. Wrestle clouds into dreamscapes, watch stars tumble and make a wish.

He watches Origin sleep. The burden on his shoulders lifts for a moment, allowing Javi to see the boy underneath it all. There's a solemnness to him, solid and unyielding. On his brow, years of regret; in his feathers, the story of the universe.

Or maybe something simpler, like if you submerge the world in undersea trenches and rub the spill-off into the sky. Veins of black and gold mimicking the losing end of a distorted checkerboard, stained glass windows buried in tar. _We are all warriors in human skin,_ someone said to Javi once, and Origin doesn't even have that luxury. The airy shackles tie him down even now.

Javi falls asleep long after the moon reaches its peak, and the flashes of color popping in his mind afterward grant him no peace.

* * *

There is a boy with a bandage wrapped around his head. He looks like Origin. He falls on the ice over and over again, a blur of red and black and bleeding from his forehead and chin.

 _Stop,_ he wants to say. _Stop hurting yourself,_ but Javi somehow knows he will never listen.

The boy weeps. Javi is too far away to reach him.

It is only after Javi wakes up that he remembers the competition, the Olympics, the defending champion. The skating world and the Cricket Club and everything he left behind.

Weeks trapped here have caused Pyeongchang and all its glamor to slip from his priorities; a fruit carving contest, Origin's butterfly sketches, and soccer with coconuts have somehow taken its place.

This won't do.

He thinks of his parents, his sister's dream, the cruelty of Russia, and finds in himself a burning resolve to shape up next season. He has to medal. He is going to medal. He will die fighting for that medal. He will find a chance to get out, and he will not pester Origin about this anymore.


	30. XVI

[Origin]

Javier carves stories into the lake and Origin listens. The glide of his blades tells of promises, of memories and mistakes and regrets. A rasping melody, sad and wistful, the way leaves turn golden when they die and the fury of storms calls forth rainbows.

Origin thinks it's beautiful.

_Many came to see the dancing fairy. You were the first to dance with me._

And then Javier speaks. "You know, I hate to leave you here, but I really have to get back. My family and Brian must be worried already."

_Wait._

_Don't go_.

He rushes to the ice. He dances and dances and dances until his feet bleed and his shoulders sag and the wild thing beating in his chest cannot hurt him anymore. Twist, tangle, unravel, repeat. Javier will be gone. He will be alone again.

_No._

_Please stay._

_Please._

"Yuushuu?"

He crouches down and pats the frost surface the way he and Otoñal used to. He wonders if his brother remembers.

"They all disappear. Everyone. They leave me." His voice breaks.

_Don't go don't go don't go don't go don't go don't—_

Wait.

Javier doesn't have to leave.

Yet.

He tunes out Javier's reply as an idea takes root in his mind. Javier doesn't have to go. Javier doesn't need to know. Javier can stay. He'll make Javier stay. Just a little bit longer, until the feathers are gone and they can leave this place together. Yes, he won't say a word about the forest trails, or the shortcuts to town, or the path to the ocean. Javier will wait. Javier will stay. Yes he will. He will. He's not going anywhere. He's not leaving.

Javier looks at him expectantly. Was he asking a question? Origin blinks, clueless.

The Spanish champion sighs, and a wave crashes blindly into the dead end of the beach.

* * *

When the twins were born, Origin did not cry. The midwives said the tears must have been locked up in some unreachable part of him, and even now they refuse to grant him their comfort. In his loneliness, he stays in a cage and lashes out at the adamantine bars that refuse to budge. He cannot leave no matter how hard he wants to because invisible chains are always the hardest.

The caves tower above him now, camp left far behind as he stares grimly at the stone behemoth illuminated by the drizzle of stars gloating over his fate. He wishes he could throw a net and pull all of them down for their deafness.

Dead leaves crumble around his feet. He runs his fingertips along the fissured walls, grounding himself, remembering, before plunging into moonless darkness.

Light sparks. He takes a pouch of crystals and empties the contents in a batch of heated water. Shrugging off layers of fur and cloth, he steps into the wood tub.

It's more effective when concentrated, he remembers from when the dance mistress first taught him the secret to amplify the water's healing powers.

He sinks into the bath.

There is water everywhere, and he leans into its embrace— water that takes life, water that grants it, water that steals from the rainbow, water that freezes at the slightest hint of cold, water he dares not cast his eyes upon, lest the fairies be offended by his presence and punish him with another cruel enchantment.

The minutes pass. He watches his skin shrivel. Will shadows move if you think hard enough? If you concentrate, can you make things disappear? He doesn't know but he hopes, he hopes that little by little, maybe the feathers will go away.

 _To Canada_ , he grunts as the mineral salts burn into his skin. _To my brother._

He hopes Javier can wait.


	31. XVII

[Javi]

White noise pollutes the camp all morning. There is something fishy going on and Javi's determined to get to the bottom of it. He snoops around while everyone's busy with lunch and finds burlap sacks of crystal powder identical to the stuff he saw in the cave. During his afternoon walk, he notices a partly hidden canvas awning in the trees near the waterfalls, and underneath are wide pans of some kind of bluish-tinted milky liquid and racks of feathers left to dry.

Again, they look similar to the ones he found before. Origin is the only living creature he has ever seen frequenting those tunnels, so he's either been assigned to carry out a part of their operations from another base, or he's stealing their technology for whatever reason on earth.

What _is_ this anyway? The whole setup sounds like something ripped off a page of traditional medicine. They're probably selling this stuff. What's the big deal with colored feathers anyway?

_Think, Javi, think._

Perhaps… perhaps this isn't an isolated case. The tulip trade, the opium trade, silk trade, spice trade— all of these involved a well-guarded secret. It could be drugs. Could be something simpler, something natural, something only found here.

Wait. There's a medicinal spring running through the caves, right? The one fairies were said to bathe in? Maybe that could be the key to this puzzle.

He slips back among the other men, a couple of feathers and a bit of powder hidden in his pocket, determined to figure out yet another secret of this place that holds him prisoner.

* * *

Another cycle of the sun goes by. Javi learns nothing new, but with each passing day he's building this strange sort of friendship over things like catching beetles or picking caterpillars off tomatoes and stealing sachets of hot chocolate from the pantry.

Origin presents him a spare pair of skating boots that feel a lot worse than rental skates and they sneak away to that patch of eternal ice where Javi busies himself doing a hundred crossovers and dozens of single and double Salchows. Skating feels heavenly. He can't believe he misses this so much.

"Hey Brian!" he shouts aloud. "I'm practicing!"

Origin glances at him in curiosity, brows furrowed, and doesn't utter a word.

 _The sky is falling, Javi_ , his coach would say if he heard him. Falling and falling and falling.

It feels great to be alive, sprawled on the ice under miles of watercolor skies and fresh air with the familiar ache of bruised hips, free of the staleness of a caged indoor rink. No wonder Yuzu always looked like he'd want to fly out the boards if he could.

What if, what if Javi met Origin before? What if the boy knew Brian, if he fooled around with Nam? He imagines the twins outdoing themselves on quad battles. It would be like nothing anyone had ever seen. One was enough to shake up the skating world. Two would be overwhelming.

If Origin was there, Javi realizes, he wouldn't be champion at Shanghai, or Boston. It's a sobering thought.

 _Shuu-pahh! Shhhh..._ breaks the stillness. An impressive triple toeloop.

Looks like someone wants to show off today.

Not to be outdone, Javi does a few jumps of his own. It's much harder with these non-customized blades but he manages a (barely rotated) double Sal.

Origin follows with a— _lucky for him to have the more decent skates at the moment_ — a triple loop.

Javi claps and cheers. "Wow! Who taught you?"

"Fairy did."

He blinks. _Okay._

"Well, I'd do a quad or two if only these shaky blades would cooperate," he complains. "Bad blades! Bad! Behave!"

"Quad sound dangerous. Javier not scared?"

"I'm more scared of losing," he confesses. "Nothing wrong with that, of course. It's part of the game. But letting my parents down after everything— I can't. I just can't. They sacrificed so much; it's the least I can do to repay them."

His posture on the Ina Bauer is decent enough, but his spins are slow and labored from lack of practice, and the negative thoughts come crashing in with every twist. He forces them back. They have no place here, not on this lake, not in these mountains.

"Javier spin look funny," comments Origin with the trilling giggle of ukuleles and flute pipes.

 _This is what the world never got to see._ He is blessed, truly blessed, he is lost and trapped and the food tastes bad and is almost never enough to fill his stomach, but Origin puffs on a bug stuck in the web of his fingers, and Javi finds he has no regrets.

* * *

They lie on their backs afterward, poking holes in the sun. Origin is braiding crowns out of weeds.

"You could switch, you know. The judges won't know the difference. He does the short program, you do the long program. For exhibitions, well...maybe take turns?" Javi proposes.

"Judges won't know. Will you?"

"I will," he says, and he means it. One long glance at the twists of their blades would be enough to tell them apart. Origin isn't one with the ice, doesn't flow through it like water the way his twin does. But he'll fight for his place on it. He will fall and he will get up and the world doesn't need another snow angel.

"You and my brother are good friend?"

"We…we used to be." Javi raises his arm to shield himself from the midday heat.

And then Worlds happened. And then media happened. And then they learned it was not so easy to share a friendship with the one person you would fight tooth and nail for your title.

"Is he happy? Say to me, my brother is happy?" Origin asks, tentative and wistful and so full of hope and it tugs at a piece of Javi's heart. Family is family even years and countries away from each other. He knows this better than anyone.

"He's happy when he's skating. He's miles ahead of everyone else." _He's untouchable_. "And I'm retiring," he adds.

Origin looks at him worriedly. "Javier not skate anymore?"

It takes him but a moment of hesitance before replying, "Of course I will. I always will." He nudges Origin's elbow. "Come on. I'll take you to Japan. Or we can visit my home in Madrid. Or even Toronto. You should see the Great Lakes. And I'm sure Effie would be happy to meet you."

"Who Effie?"

"She's my cat. My beautiful, fat cat."

"Tell me how Toronto look."

"It's got lots of buildings."

"Many people?"

"Many, many people."

"Is ice nice?"

"What?"

"Is ice good? Do ice let me dance too?"

"Yes, we have the best ice at the club. And we'd be honored to have you skate there. I'll even pay your membership fee."

It's probably this exact moment when the weight of his promises crystallizes in his mind. No matter what, he has to bring Origin with him when he escapes. He can't leave without the boy.

And he still, still doesn't have a plan.

He knows the legend: let down a string, trace the path out of the labyrinth. Pull it taut and run towards the light. He fears it won't work this time.

* * *

Sleep comes in sweaty fits that send him rolling out of his mat at midnight. The blanket is thin and short and the hardwood floor is a torture device for his poor hips and back. He reluctantly gets up and massages his neck. He cuddles his pillow, feeling the strain anew on his ribs and shoulders. It's pure misery. There's no way he can go back to sleep like this.

Throwing off the covers, he tiptoes out the hut and takes a walk. He doesn't get far before he finds someone stargazing by the hillside.

It's Origin.

Black holes in his eyes anchor galaxies of their own, the breath of the oceans sails past his lips when he sighs. Flecks of starburst crumble through him, mapping the pulse of the earth in the canyons of his ribs, in the winding sinews. In his lungs, the dying rivers; in his bones, the sun-baked rice paddies. It's the dust of comets encrusted, cords of strength bound in sandstone prison, and inside is a living, breathing thing clawing its way to the light.

"Can't sleep?" Javi asks, taking a seat on the grass beside the boy whose eyes are glued on the wilderness of constellations above.

He watches the heavens with the yearning of black holes. Out here, in the evergreen darkness, where the trees breathe and the rasping of crickets impersonates the ungreased cogs of the universe, Javi can see the golden chains clinging to his feathers, the broken halo nestled in his hair.

Javi thinks of the cold, aloof moonlight of Moscow, of New Jersey, and all the other lonely moons and their scattered, shimmering tears pasted all over the limitless pitchblende ceiling.

"Night," he tells the boy, "is a liar."

Maybe a star fell. Maybe the rink threw itself into a volcano. Origin's eyes are shining, shining, shining, earth and sky and the drops of rain connecting them. These are the burned parts, the marred brilliance, whatever was salvaged from the ashes. And it's not perfect, not beautiful; every scar is a reminder of things that will never come back.

"Javier not forget me, okay?" Origin says all of a sudden, surprising him. "No matter what, Javier not forget me." He grabs Javi's arm. "Promise?"

"Okay," Javi says. "Promise."

The moon disappears for the rest of the night. The next morning, Origin is nowhere to be found.


	32. XVIII

[Origin]

Maybe he should cut his hair.

None of the men in the camp have hair this long. Javier's is short. Blackhead keeps his creamy tresses under a cap, or when he's not wearing one, a messy topknot. Origin studies his reflection for anything else he can fix.

Except the feathers, of course.

Two strong tugs and one comes off, a thin plume the color of milk teeth. He twirls it between his thumb and index finger, resisting the urge to snap it in half. Such a mismatch with the rest of his features, such cruelty, and why was he of all people singled out for such a fate?

His house is gone. His village is gone. His family is gone. For the longest time, he thought everything else that made him human was taken by the fairies as well.

But Javier said, _"It's not your fault."_ Javier said, _"Come here, I'll be your friend, I'm not scared of you, not anymore."_ If only Javier would stay forever, maybe the world would right itself. Then he would have someone, someone to talk to and share the ice with, to share the forest with, and the caves, and the stars, and even if the fairies kept hating, even if the rest of his tribe cursed him to their graves, he would never have to be the monster again.

If only Javier would stay, he'll forgive the ocean.

Maybe, if he can be more normal, if the ice would be good to him, maybe Javier won't want to leave so badly. Maybe he'll come back. Maybe he'll bring Otoñal. Maybe and maybe; it's a beautiful fantasy and daydreams cost nothing after all.

He sends the wind his feather, in memory of the boy lost to him and the memories that will never return.

Even now they haunt him.

**_Do you think the fairies liked my dance?_ **

_I don't know, Nyal. I've never seen one._

**_The bee got mad at me. Look, I got stung._ **

_Bees aren't nice. Next time leave them alone._

**_Where did all the strawberries go? There were so many this morning…_ **

_Stop complaining. You didn't even leave any for me._

**_I think this costume needs more glass stones._ **

_Nyal! Any more and you'll turn into a walking mirror!_

Nyal, he whispers, silly, clumsy twin of his. The person in Javier's stories seems an imposter. (Yellow bears? When did Otoñal ever like bears? In any of their paintings, in any of their carvings, in tales of man-eating cats and striped horses he never once showed a fondness for them.) Eight years have failed to restore him; Origin will always have a brother who cannot remember, will always remember a phantom who does not exist, he can wait and he can hope but some things simply won't ever, ever come back.

Otoñal died with the waves; a new identity has sprung forth— _Yuzuru Hanyu_ and the sea of flags that blaze forth when they chant his name. He seems happy with his life now. Perhaps— perhaps it's time to let go.

But he can't.

The wind sighs, the earth sighs, his breath sighs, they all sigh. _He can't._

He wants to see Otoñal again. Fourteen years is too long to blot out entirely. The love for ice is still there, ingrained in his soul. He speaks fondly of bees to this day, and nothing has dampened his distaste for pepper. Underneath the new quirks, the new hobbies, the strange antics that have come to define him, it's all the dear younger twin he has always known: playful, respectful, passionate, and brave. Very, very brave.

Might there not be some tiny memory of the brother he left and the mother who left him that remains, even just one lingering question, or the silence of a cold unfilled space?

Origin wonders.

The mountain breeze accepts his offering, the feather departs with his dreams. And he knows all too well that dreams are but fading, merciless things.

He can't have his brother back, but now he has Javier. He tells himself this is more than he deserves.

* * *

He retreats to his dark kingdom, thankful for he erratic _drip-drip_ in the caves that blocks out the oppressive silence. It seems only yesterday when he first stumbled in here, young and curious, that day when the summer breeze was strong and he grew tired of chasing butterflies with his brother.

"Aww, the wind blew all the flowers away. I wish we could stick them back on."

"Nyal, you know that's impossible."

"But _Aniue,"_ Otoñal whined, the way younger brothers are wont to do, "they'll die."

His mother intervened before they could start another endless squabble. "Look at the beheaded stalks," she said, grasping Otoñal's hand and pointing to the lilac-tinted buds that clung tight, safe and sound in the mother plant's firm hold. "Tomorrow there will be more. No matter how many the wind cuts off, the flowers just keep going, and so should you."

His mother was wise as she was sickly, and Origin worried for her. She would choke on the thick, ash-sprinkled air permeating the fire pit and send Origin to gather herbs afterward. He found other ways to help; he learned to keep embers going all night and to fan them to life in the morning to boil rice in bamboo or to roast chickens over charcoal. The first whiff of smoke drove his brother out of the kitchen, only to return when the fires died down and he could safely wash the dishes without suffocating. Otoñal's lungs were weak, like Mother's.

"Maybe it's the curse," Otoñal whispered one hot, humid night, when they couldn't sleep and spent the hours imagining flying roofed boats— or whatever _airplanes_ meant— under the covers. "I'm the unlucky twin."

"That's not true."

"But I'm always sick. You never find it hard to breathe. You never know when it's going to rain the way Mother and I do because your chest suddenly feels tight and the air can't fit inside."

"How does it feel," Origin asked, "when a storm is coming?"

His twin hummed thoughtfully before replying, "It feels like there's a wall in front of you and the air you need is on the other side. It feels like drowning."

Drowning in thin air. How can that happen, he wondered, and then Otoñal had a coughing fit so bad he needed daily visits by the healer for a week. At last the wheezing subsided and the boy went to sleep with a blue stone around his neck.

"The healer told me this can keep me healthy," he explained, eyes weary from so many restless nights.

"It's just a rock," said Origin.

"It's pretty." Hope sparked anew in Otoñal's eyes. Origin tried to smile.

Soon pretty came to mean so many, many glass stones on his dance robes until every inch of him glittered when the sun darted upon the lake.

And then he made Origin put them on too. The one he wore was filled with constellations. Otoñal said his were the lights of cities far across the sea.

That was his brother, the boy with dreams of the world beyond, who always knew the perfect arrangement for everything. He took charge of cleaning up, tidying their little hut, setting things in their proper angles. Origin had no interest in that. He'd sneak off in secret to explore the caves despite his mother's warnings and got himself lost in them more times than he'd admit. Otoñal rarely breached the outskirts of the village, preferring to read, or learn things from the tribe healer, or spend his spare time dancing in the open air.

Once, when the rain didn't stop for weeks, and his patience was at its limit, Otoñal took his practice indoors. The bamboo lantern toppled over, spilling oil that proved impossible to scrub off completely, and the stain on the floor henceforth served as a reminder not to throw caution to the wind.

They threw other things instead. Stones across the lake— Origin's pebble always went farther, but Otoñal's aim was better. Darts and throwing knives they tried briefly; Origin made a few attempts and decided he liked archery more, and soon they were shooting arrows into melons, missing most of the time anyway.

"Nyal! Look at this!" he called to the boy staring at a bee hive one incense-suffused afternoon. Their neighbor let him borrow a longbow, and he had a few hours to experiment with it.

It was magnificent. Double strips of steam-bent bamboo skillfully laminated to the wood of yew with glue strained from fish bladders. Bound with birch strips, lacquered black. The tip of the recurve bow towered above him; it took all his strength to pull the bowstring, and even with all his muscles taut he could not stretch the pliant wood far enough. Still he tried, nocking a very long arrow through with trembling fingers, and the bow wobbled, his hands burned, his legs shook with ambition. He let it fly towards a passing bird, it went up, gave up, and sputtered downward with a frustrated sigh. Perhaps the bow was disappointed in him too.

"You're holding it the wrong way," advised the neighbor, his mother's friend, wry smile hidden behind a gray beard. He lifted the bow from Origin's reddened palms and tested the wax-coated hemp string with his fingers.

"First, make sure it's in working order. No splinters, no cracks, no loose fibers." Taking Origin's small hand, he smoothed it along the entirety of the wood-and-bamboo composite, devoting special attention to the birch handgrip on the asymmetric handle. The man's skin was calloused and wrinkled. Origin wondered if that was the secret to his skill.

"The _yumi_ is the bow of warriors. The top part is made of younger wood. See? It has more spring to it." He guided Origin's palm to the other half. "The bottom is stiffer. It helps steady your aim. Together, they form the most powerful bow in the land."

The rest of it was familiar. _Right thumb under the arrow, first two fingers above, concentrate, bend the wrist at the right moment, timing is everything._

"Yu," the man dictated, helping Origin tug on the feathered arrow, letting the polished shaft slip with ease over the joint of Origin's index finger. "Tsuru." Origin pulled with all his might, sweat dripped down his forehead, and with their combined strength the arrowhead went back, back, back, the bowstring reached past his ears—

"Let go!" came the order, the arrow surged forward and embedded itself into a branch.

"Good!" the man praised him, "Seems we have a new archer in the making! I look forward to the day you take this to the hunt."

Origin heaved a sigh of relief. He heard a triumphant cry and realized it was his brother.

"Me too! Me too! I want to try!"

"You're not tall enough," Origin teased, holding it away from his twin's reach.

 _"Aniue!_ We're the same height! Come on, come on, let me try!"

Otoñal was always competitive, even back then. He could never bear to lose, and Origin would never back down, and the two of them successfully bent enough arrows to force the old hunter to teach them the art of making weapons. In this Otoñal excelled; he was good with his hands, better than Origin. He would spend hours studying designs and illustrating them.

And so they grew older, taller, their hands firm and their ankles strong. They danced, they skated, and by the light of candles Origin secretly tore his eiderdown wings into dust.

"What's wrong with me?" he asked his mother, and she always gave the same answer.

"The doctors did something to me. I don't know why you were born this way. I'm sorry."

One day he came home from the lake to find his mother excited over a sapling at the border of the forest. "It's a Yuzu tree," she almost swooned. "I love them."

There was only one, and she spent years longing for the day it would bear fruit. She watered it, she waited, she died. Otoñal watered it, he waited, he was sent to die. Origin watered it, and the earth shook, and an avalanche uprooted it.

He tried to save it, there was still life in the plant, a few wooden poles for support and a fresh mound of soil would have done the trick. But the villagers demanded justice and the tree died without him ever tasting its fruit.

He is twenty-two now and he remembers he has yet to see a full-grown yuzu in bloom.

* * *

Sunlight after forever underground can make anyone feel eternal. He has a bow in his hands now. An arrow zips through the blur of green and steals a pheasant's last breath, sure and strong and fearsome, a far cry from what his younger self could ever do.

Otoñal never truly mastered the way of the bow. He wonders if Javier could.

 _"He needs your help,"_ says a voice in the flowers, sudden and worried and failing to startle him.

He doesn't turn. Years of solitude have taught him much; even in the dimmest light he sees, he hears, he senses the fairy rustling the trees.

_"You can't keep him. He has a home too."_

"So did I!" Origin whips around, teeth bared, eyes flashing. "I had a _family!_ I lost my brother! I lost _everything!"_

He stomps his shoe into the hard earth, beating a patch of weeds to death. He keeps his eyes on the ground, acid drops pour into them, he doesn't wipe them away. It all stings. Even if he shouts, the fairy cannot grant his wish. The fairy cannot help. The fairy is useless.

 _"He doesn't belong here. Please, let him go,"_ the fairy begs him one last time.

"He's not my prisoner," Origin insists, and the fairy vanishes. He keeps walking, digging his fingers into his palms with enough force to turn his knuckles into suns.

The fairy always hates it when he lies to himself.


	33. XIX

[Javi]

They're building houses now.

To cover the expense of food and lodging, Javi is helping construct a well. Digging down to bedrock is tedious, and his shoes have begun to wear out, so he resorts to using plain wooden clogs for most of the daily tasks. When he and his three-man team finish installing the water source, he puts his rusty carpentry skills to use and assists the crew putting up the window and thatched roof of the new cabin.

The constant sawing and lifting gets monotonous after a while, and everyone's too busy to spare more than a few minutes on small talk. Without Origin to hang out with, he's bored out of his wits, so in his free time he goes exploring.

He never strays too far. Two times he visits the caves, hoping to find Origin there; twice he comes back disappointed. But he has a hypothesis to test.

He's known since his second day here that the mountain spring is great for first aid. But just how strong are its regenerative effects?

_Alright, let's give it a try._

He cuts himself thrice.

He dips his ring finger in a sample from the caves. His middle finger goes into a solution of regular water and the crystal powder he stole from the camp. In another bowl, he submerges one feather, lets the outer layer dissolve, and sticks his index finger in the liquid.

Of the three, the crystal concentrate proves to be the most quick-acting, but the slashes all heal way faster than normal. Four hours later and it's as if nothing ever happened. Without a doubt, this has to be the fairy spring in the myth.

If that powder is connected to this place— if the liquid was dehydrated somehow— like in the heat of the sun— anyone who'd come here would have access to a portable medicine cabinet. Slap on a fancy name, call it the elixir of life, make up some crazy story about how impossible it is to get this miracle drug, and with a bit of advertising you'd be rich.

As for the coated feathers? The legend of fairy swans is starting to sound like an awesome marketing strategy.

So that's what all the secrecy was for. A moneymaking scheme. Probably for their revolution. Or maybe the whole territory issue was a front so they could hide the reason they started camping here in the first place. And if they discover that he knows their little trick…

This doesn't look good.

Javier goes back, zips his mouth shut, and the next day he gets tied up.

To a tree. With rope. Because handcuffs are overrated.

How did they find out? No one was following him— he was careful—

"Why are you doing this?" he protests, after one of them lands a punch in his gut. "What did I do?" he sputters. It hurts.

The final knots are tied. Rough bark scrapes his elbow. Wood splinters tangle into his hair.

"You're taking me hostage for ransom? I'm not rich I swear! Wait, don't tell me this is a tribal sacrifice?" he cries, witnessing six more men bound in ropes.

The assigned guard spits out his drink. "Ransom? You wish. Someone's been watching too many spy movies."

"So what's all this for?" he demands to know. This is illegal! This can't be happening! What on earth is going on?

The guard— was it Volshov or Sherkov— takes a final whiff of cigarette smoke and crushes his foot on the unburnt end. "Either the few of you die or all of us go hungry."

Hungry?

 _That's it?_ A food crisis?

"One mouth less to feed."

For goodness sake, he's being chained to a tree because of their ongoing food crisis? Most of the construction's over so now they're laying off their extra workers? What sort of ridiculous-insane-stupid movie plothole is that?

Javi squirms in his bonds. "Why don't you just let us go? We can find our own food. I swear we won't touch your precious _instant noodles."_

"No one's going anywhere. You know too much already," he barks, landing another swift blow to Javi's stomach.

"This is inhumane," he chokes, spitting out saliva and… no blood, thank heavens.

The guard sneers. "This is the Forest of Death Reapers, remember? There is nothing human about this place."

"Think we could sell their organs, Boss?" his companion interrupts. "I know folks who'd pay millions for that."

"We're in the mountains, you idiot. Can't drag them to port without working ourselves sick."

"I say, if they were pretty young girls they'd be more useful," another butts in. "As it is, we can't sell their organs, can't auction them off. What do we do?"

They don't kill him, not yet, but they take Javi's watch. They take his belt. His travel bag and all his belongings are theirs now. Restrained like this, he can barely struggle, can't even manage a simple kick to the face.

Well, it could have been worse. At least he isn't marooned on a coast of cannibals, or made to walk a gangplank with hands tied behind his back.

"These fools aren't the only ones we have to worry about. Bird boy's been gone for a week," someone hollers.

"Nah, he'll be back soon. His Spanish friend here is going to be worm food if he doesn't show up."

Javi shivers. Worm food? Are they're going to… bury him alive?

"Oh this guy? He's been here for what, barely five weeks? Are they really that close?"

"Even if they aren't, the boy knows we'll burn the old village down if he runs away. Nothing will be left, not even the last speck of their pagan temple. He loves that place too much to let it go."

The crunch of footsteps on wet leaves fades away. This is the part where he's supposed to escape.

He quickly unfastens the knots and—

He… _tries._

Again.

Take two. Take three…four…five…ten.

He… can't loosen… the knots.

At all.

He's stuck.

The sun is setting. Escape plans come in droves, and they only work when you have limbs that aren't rooted to the spot. Even if he can break free, whatever swashbuckling he watched in the movies isn't suited for kitchen knives, and though in theory he's familiar with operating heavy firearms, he's never tried actually shooting a rifle in his life.

One hour, two hours.

He's cold, he's hungry, and he needs to pee.

This is _terrible._

It's the absolute worst vacation ever. So far he has debunked a legend, met his training mate's long lost twin, found an abandoned civilization, encountered a wannabe drug syndicate, and gotten himself in trouble.

 _Why do I keep doing these things?_ Medaling at the Olympics is hard enough; did he really have to get involved with something potentially on the radar of Interpol? He stifles a groan, feeling seventeen years old again, and utterly alone. He thinks of his family. He thinks of skating. He thinks of hurling a gaming console at Patrick.

Time is running out.

"Javi," someone whispers in the false stillness of the night. "Javi!"

He cranes his neck towards the sound. It's Mawar, the kind Indonesian lady who befriended him the very first day he stumbled into camp.

She undoes his restraints with a blade she must have pickpocketed after dinner, and immediately a hundred metal spikes pierce his arms like overzealous lightning.

"They're going to kill you," she warns him. "You must escape!"

He helps untie the others.

"You should leave too. These people are dangerous."

"Of course they are," she agrees, and there's a truckload of bitterness there.

"Are they hurting you?" he asks.

"Bastards. Monsters. Recruitment agency," she grits her teeth with the same disgust as one would say _Somalian pirates._

Human trafficking.

She hands him a pair of mismatched pink rubber flipflops two sizes too small— one with a broken strap, the other with a long crack down the center nearly splitting it in half. He might as well run barefoot. He tries that, manages a few yards, and gives up. It feels like getting speared with nails on every step, and he trades it for the feeling of walking on eggcrates.

Their breaths scatter into the woods. Already he hears the screams of one of them being tortured by their pursuers.

He slams into solid muscle and recoils. It's Blackhead. Javi readies his fists into a fighting stance that he hopes isn't too pathetic.

"Go!" Blackhead says, the way he showed mercy to Origin all those years ago. He shoves Javi into a tangle of vines that hook into his shirt and feast on it.

He doesn't know where he is; he doesn't know where he's going. To the caves perhaps. That's the best hiding place he can think of.

 _Run._ His legs are on fire. _Run, run, run._

He'd give anything for night vision goggles right now. Eluding capture by the light of a gibbous moon, tripping on the rocks, _ouch ouch ouch aaaaaahh_ he probably didn't break anything but there's going to be bruises.

"Javier!"

He stops dead in his tracks. Origin? Where on earth did he come from? Did the boy rush here just to rescue him?

"Yuushuu? Is that you?" he hisses.

There's but a split second of indecision on Origin's face before comprehension dawns on him. "Hurry!" he whispers, hoarse and raw. His hand clamps on Javi's wrist, and they take off to some deep part of the caves he hasn't been to before.

It's a shift from dark to darker, Javi struggles to keep from shredding his feet on the rocks and Origin strikes a fire.

"Thank you," Javi pants. He hasn't had a workout like that in ages. Then the flames cast their light on the planes of Origin's face and Javi shudders.

It's the exact same expression from the day they first met. He doesn't like that look.

"I could keep Javier here. They not find you in caves," Origin says, dangerously calm.

Javi's heart thuds in his chest.

"I could take you to far end of forest. No one find you there."

"Yuushuu, _please._ Home," he croaks. He can't— he can't take this anymore. "Please… you're the only one… _please,_ let me go."

He's begging now. Origin's eyes are warring with themselves, his eyelids fall shut, shutting Javi out as hope and despair clash in Javi's heart. _Please, please, please._

"But you not my prisoner," Origin declares at last, eyes open, eyes clear. "You my friend." He takes a deep, shuddering breath and with a tiny flame and shaking fingers, he claws at a pile of rocks until pieces of moonlight shine through. There's a tiny creek on the other side. He helps Javi squeeze through the opening.

"Go straight. Follow stream. It take you to ocean," Origin instructs him.

"You knew the way out, and you never told me." It's not an accusation, it's— he's too pumped up with adrenaline to process the mixed relief and betrayal he feels.

"Sorry." Origin presses the handle of the kerosene lantern to his palm. "It's chance to go. Hurry before too late!"

"What about you? If I go, I'm taking you with me."

"I can't. The feathers."

"Yuushuu, please." He can't leave his friend with those men. Origin has to come; they're going to ice shows, Javi's touring him around Canada— what about meeting his brother? "You have to come with me. I can't leave you here!" He hasn't begged anyone this hard since he moved to TCC.

"Sorry, Javier," he apologizes again, and Javi's chest gets slammed by a sledgehammer. "The Olympics, you dream about always? Javier must win. Must get medal."

 _Wait,_ he wants to say, not so fast. This can't be goodbye yet. Everything's ripping apart; the ground is doing cartwheels under his feet. But Origin's will is forged of steel. There is nothing Javi can do now but accept his decision.

"And plushie?" Origin cracks a smile. It's a blinding sliver of starlight, and Javi thinks this must be the kind of boy who falls from the sky when his dreams grow too heavy to lift him up.

"I'm getting that plushie," he vows. Origin's hair is sticking up, and he pats it down one last time.

"Don't give up, Javier. Don't ever give up."

He never knew smiles could be this heartbreaking. He grabs Origin's hand and squeezes it tight, feathers and all. "We'll see each other again, right?"

The boy nods with a sureness that makes Javi want to believe. "Bye bye, Javier." And that is the last Javi sees of him before the forest fades into the back of his mind and he's face to face with the empty waves lapping at the Milky Way.


	34. XX

[Haru]

Snow Woman. Yuki-Onna. Ice Fairy. As civilization progresses, the epithets change.

His first recollection of mainland Japan is white flakes alighting on a golden forest during Sendai's Pageant of Starlight. It is strange and beautiful and he marvels at the sight of rainbow stardust in the trees until the children start singing of pink-white blossoms and branches shedding their frost skin. He knocks at the doors of a public rink, breathes in the stale air, and asks the ice to accept him.

He meets a girl.

Her name is Saya. She is kind and she loves skating and he wishes he had a sister like her.

She stops coming back.

He seals her name and her face into his memory, and sails off on the four winds on a journey around the world.

* * *

His wings break. He meets scientists who salvage the rest of him, and befriends a struggling Spanish skater in Russia. He returns to Japan. He runs away.

His wandering takes him to the southwest coast, to thin legs and arms and waves lapping at wet black hair at dawn. There's a body lying on the beach.

He's young— younger than Haru's age should be. A few inches away from where his fingers rest on the sand is a bow with a missing string. He lifts it carefully, and turning it over, he finds characters inscribed on it.

_Otoñal._

He checks for a pulse. The boy stirs.

Haru gasps. The boy's face resembles his own.

With his fading strength, he reverts to his human form, cell by cell, molecule by molecule, and asks help from the girl who used to skate in the rink in Miyagi, now busy taking pictures of the ocean with her mother.

"Please. His skin is turning blue already," he pleads.

They rush to the aid of the stranger on the beach and when Haru visits later that week, the boy and his bow are in a schoolmaster's household in Sendai City.

* * *

The boy is lonely.

"What is your name?" Haru asks, startling the amnesiac stranger.

"I don't know," he admits.

"Did they give you a name?"

It takes him a while to answer that. "They want to call me Yuzuru because of the bow they found on the sand. But the name written is Otoñal."

"I'm Haru."

"Haru," the boy repeats. "Nice to meet you." He looks too tired to say much more.

"Are you feeling better now? Is your memory coming back?"

"The ice," he says, after hesitating. "That's all I remember. I felt like I was flying. Someone called me a fairy."

And that would be impossible. Memory loss aside, he's a completely normal boy.

But they share the same face.

They cloned him, he remembers, and feels a sharp chill on his nape. "Do you remember where you came from?"

"No. But there was ice there. There was lots of ice, and it was so beautiful. Someone was angry but I… don't know who it was. I don't know— I… I can't remember."

The boy is lonely and sad and frustrated and lost, so Haru does the best thing he can think of to cheer him up.

He tells stories.

Stories about skating. Stories of the countries he's visited. Stories about Javi. The boy soaks them in with curious eyes and a smile that grows wider every day.

"Maybe you're a fairy too," he says half-jokingly. "Maybe you lost your wings and fell into the ocean."

"Maybe," the boy agrees. "I want to try skating like you and Saya-nechan. If I'm near the ice my memories might come back."

The next day the family plans a trip to the rink. The boy initially fumbles with a pair of rental skates but glides on the ice with the ease of someone who's been doing this all his life. The week after that he executes a layback spin. His eyes sparkle with something akin to nostalgia afterwards, chasing his breath he takes his first step on the path to greatness.

A few years more and he could meet Javi in competition. And if they become friends— if this ocean-sent boy can take his place— Javi will never need to look for someone to train axels with, and the boy will not have to feel lonely again.

He hopes fate will grant him this final wish.

When summer comes, Haru places the Pooh bear Javi bought for him on the boy's desk. He leaves his bracelet— after disabling the tracker— it's just a string of beads now but he hopes it can be something to remember him by. One more breath and he is gone, and the boy wakes up to an empty room.

* * *

For a sentient humanoid whose greatest proof of humanity is a mere imitation of true flesh and bone, Haru has too many regrets when he leaves Sendai. The boy will be fine, he knows— he hopes, even with a blank past and a limited understanding of the fine-tuned clockwork of society. He is smart, he is talented; he will find a way.

But his memories are one mystery too many. "Fairy" and "flying" bring to mind ancient legends. Haru knows some parts of Japan where the stories are revered— the sacred island of Okinoshima, the forests at the base of Fujiyama; the archipelago of Tsushima and its connection with _Project Sekkisei,_ and a few other places mostly hidden from the world. He wonders if that boy is one of those rumored to be magic-touched.

With a passing ship and his penchant for turning invisible, he traces the boy's origins back to his homeland. Hakuchou Hisui, in the Tsushima archipelago off the coast of Nagasaki. What he finds is another boy, dark eyes on a deathly pale, gaunt face.

Once again, his own reflection.

Haru shivers. Perhaps… perhaps Project Sekkisei was not a complete failure after all.

"What's your name?" Haru asks.

"Are you one of the fairies? One of those monsters who took my brother? Did you have to steal his face too?" the boy screams back.

It's _bitter, bitter, bitter._ The knife of memory cuts deep into a cauterized sore, twisting at the maelstrom beneath.

"Stupid legends," he rants. "I'll never forgive them for taking him."

_Them? Fairy legends?_

_Were the researchers behind this?_

Haru doesn't have the strength to investigate, or reunite this suspected clone with the other, but, "If you could, would you want to meet him?"

"Don't lie to me. He's gone."

"But what if he survived?"

"They say twins bring misfortune upon the land. I do not want to be the cause of his misery anymore. He has suffered too much already."

Haru can feel himself disintegrating. He's been cut off from the power source since the moment he escaped, and weeks later, he's run out of energy to sustain himself. He can't do anything to help the boy, so he finds a spot among the trees and hibernates.

"I'll stay," he promises Origin when he wakes up. It saps his strength to take visible form. Something is wrong with the place. Something is different. He doesn't know what woke him up from his deep slumber, but the sapling in his most recent memories is a full grown tree now.

Origin sits down, hunched over his knees, and pretends not to care.

The weeks pass. Months. Years. It's quiet here compared to the mainland.

For Origin, his promise to Javi, the boy he left at Sendai, and the world he has yet to see, he vows not to fade away.

He vows to live.

* * *

[Origin]

He watches as a coastguard vessel takes Javier from the island. His friend is leaving.

"We'll see him again," the spring fairy assures him, looking a little sad as well.

Above them, the stars are watching too. The last night of spring spills over them, the ship disappears into a speck smaller than the twinkling lights.

"We will," Origin swears, "both of them."

His footsteps trespass unflinchingly into the dawn.


	35. Let the Galaxies Crumble - [I]

**_Even if we're breaking down_ **

**_We can find a way to break through_ **

**_Even if we can't find Heaven_ **

**_I'll walk through Hell with you_ **

**_Love, you're not alone_ **

**_Cause I'm gonna stand by you~_ **

**Rachel Platten**

* * *

[Javi]

At last, after eons of being separated from his beloved Playstation, Javier Fernandez comes home.

Everyone's a little worried for his health. He's lost some weight and his cheeks look sullen in the mirror. _I'm okay_ , he assures them. His eyes rake across the rigid skyline. There aren't enough birds. There isn't enough green. Hints of smog gnaw at the edge of the horizon.

His family, closest friends, and coaches get a brief summary of his adventures. He got lost. He found a village in the forest. He doesn't talk about Origin. He glosses over the details, tells them he dropped his phone in a swamp by accident, so sorry he didn't have mermaid powers to retrieve it. They share a good laugh and a lot of hugs and well-wishes, and he pretends his heartbeat doesn't speed up when he hears a woodwind being played or spots a feather-embellished costume lying around.

It takes time to reacquaint himself with convenience stores and having a nightlife after seven. He paces through the day staring at wallpaper panels and polished floors and glass doors, searching for a missing face and a voice that reminds him of the sea. When he finds the chance to loop the familiar laces of his skating boots, with its distinctly patterned blades and the Spanish flag proudly sewn into the side, the rink is surrounded by concrete fences and too many people crowd the ice. It feels strange. Different. It's noisier here.

He sees a figure in black execute a perfect quad loop. And then a quad Lutz. Of course, who else but their reigning World champion, defending Olympic champion, four-time GPF champion, Yuzuru Hanyu.

Correction: _Otoñal._ The missing twin.

Good luck trying to explain that.

_Hey, Yuzu? I, uh, accidentally found your long lost brother who's been working for the mafia since his tribe kicked him out and guess what, he misses you so much! Oh, and he has actual feathers growing out of his skin— you like feathers, right?_

He can already imagine Yuzu's face when he says that. _Javi, you get deliri— delirious when away?_

Or maybe he could talk to Brian first. _Coach, sorry I was too lazy to show up to practice, but in my defense I was busy learning archeology on a hiking trip with my rival's twin brother. Sorry I didn't log enough hours in the gym but we did mountain climbing practically every day. I even tried out some vintage skates and I was able to jump a double!_

As if Brian would believe that.

A few skaters notice Javi and greet him, blissfully oblivious to the internal struggle he's going through. Yuzu stops and waves a bit too enthusiastically for someone who just finished a grueling quad session, and for a second another boy flashes in Javi's mind. Just lengthen that hair, retouch a few angles, sprinkle on black feathers, and it would be the spitting image of Origin.

He swallows hard.

"Javi! You're back!" Yuzu's voice bridges the gap, and a blur of spiky hair and UnderArmour zooms forward to hug— to _high-five_ him.

Their voices are different, Javi notices now. There's a distinct, slightly hoarser and deeper timber to Origin's. Yuzu's is warmer, friendlier. Yuzu's is…

Pink. Cherry blossoms.

_"Javiii!"_

_"The problem is you always skate like you're drunk!"_

_"Javi doesn't need a doctor! Javi needs to fix his skating!"_

Great. It's those weird imaginary flashbacks again. He thought he was over this already.

He clears his throat, forcing his attention to the present. "Hey Yuzu! Did you miss me?" He smiles despite himself and goes for a hug anyway. It is good to see his training mate again, after all.

"A little." The boy grins, twenty-two and world number one, and just like that the bubble explodes, the vision rips apart.

 _Of course you didn't._ For all the crazy adventures Javi got himself into, Yuzu probably thinks he just came back from another round of slacking off.

Sure enough, Yuzu reprimands him the moment they pull apart, "Brian was worried. You didn't call anyone."

Because of course Javi didn't lose his phone, didn't get trapped in a forest, didn't get hostaged, didn't have to run for his life. And he certainly isn't missing someone who happens to share the exact same face.

"Sorry, Yuzu. I was a bit… distracted," he says. He isn't ready to tell the whole story yet, not to his parents, and especially not to him.

"Javi is always distracted," Yuzu jokes, but the sound of his laugh grates at Javi's ear. "If you don't practice hard enough, you won't be ready for next season, you can't win Olympic medal."

He grits his teeth. "Well I'm _sorry."_

Maybe Javi is a worse actor than he thought, maybe something in his tone is amiss, because Yuzu's lashes flutter with concern. Amnesiac or not, the boy has always been especially perceptive. Which is something he's not prepared to deal with right now.

"I— I'm exhausted. Let's chat more tomorrow, okay?" He reaches out to ruffle his teammate's hair but stops, letting his hand hover for a second or two before it falls to his side.

Yuzu tilts his head, eyes narrowing, wondering.

Javier is not tired. But when he sees that face he imagines another— another ridiculous nose scrunch, another pair of midnight eyes. _How the tables have turned_ , he thinks bitterly, and falls into bed with a groan.

The bed is soft, so impossibly soft. But his thoughts crash in sync with the carnelian and jasper rapids of a waterfall across the ocean. If Origin hadn't helped him, if Mawar hadn't freed him and Blackhead hadn't let him go, Javi would still be stuck in that forest. And who knows what could have happened to him there?

_Why didn't I just drag him home with me?_

He leans against the headboard in frustration and presses his palm against the antique stained wood, feeling his touch go through the walls. How many miles separate him from that island; how long and how far the journey to find cave maps and forest camps and frozen mountain lakes? Before he could just reach out and sling an arm over Origin's shoulder, and now, now…

Now he is a former world champion.

Well, now he also has a new phone and Google to the rescue, and with all the time in the world at his disposal, he hounds the search engine for the answers he needs. He types "human feathers" in the box and thirty minutes and dozens of clicks later he finds something.

_A rare condition that manifests in one in five hundred thousand, hereditary, symptoms range from pinhead welts to leaf-like growths on skin…_

And Origin's were feathers— black swan feathers— as if nature itself had chosen to make him beautiful.

_Affected areas usually found on upper body between neckline and torso. Certain cases are accompanied by excruciating pain…_

The rest of it makes Javi's stomach churn. He's supposed to be going though ice show schedules but right now all he wants is to book a ticket and march straight into the jungle to punch a couple dozen idiots in the face. The boy was sick and his tribe called him a monster.

And there's something else that bothers him. In retrospect— maybe his mind was playing tricks on him, but back in the cabin and that time in the caves… that voice…

Wait.

That wasn't the first time it happened.

There is something, something, _someone,_ some buried memory. 2010, 2009, was it? Yuzu, or someone who looked like him, too? He shakes his head.

Impossible, of course. Yuzu helping him gear up for Vancouver? Yuzu with invisibility powers? It was a daydream, a stupid daydream. He's had way too many of them to count. _Anxiety disorder, depression, severe stress,_ the psychiatrists had concluded. It wasn't Origin, and it wasn't Yuzu, and there couldn't possibly be another doppelganger triplet out there.

_Right?_


	36. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music: "Trail of Angels" by Chen Yue (Please do read the story behind it; it's a beautiful one.)
> 
> Shinobue: transverse flute
> 
> Shakuhachi: vertical flute
> 
> Ryuteki: "dragon flute"— the transverse flute used in Seimei

[Origin]

Ocean ripples slink aimlessly around the island, stirred up by the clouds' sighs and the sun's bored fingers. One by one they renounce their colors and slam upon the coral graveyard jutting with abalone-strewn rocks, hisses rising and fading in chorus with the bamboo song that casts its spell from cliffs overlooking the sea.

Origin does not watch. His mind is worlds away, with Javier, with his twin brother. Summer dew glistens on his brow and his feathers itch to follow the lure of ambient, mountain-cooled drafts. If he could only scoop up all the water and cross over to the other side, he could be with them again.

The dark rings of a week spent tracking the moon from one end of the sky to the other cling to his eyes. Watching the ocean, imagining the world beyond it— those strange walking, talking machines, those paintings that create themselves with a single click, those fruit-colored lights that never go out at night, the houses stacked on top of each other like mountains, the frozen indoor lakes — a world Javier and Otoñal are a part of, that has a thousand tongues different from his own but shares the same stars, the same discolored sky. All the questions he never got to ask Javier kept replaying in his mind last night, until the cold forced him into the warmer depths of the caves and all his thoughts blurred into a dizzying, swirling tunnel sucking him into a thick and black emptiness, alone and alone and alone and alone. And at some point, he gave in and dreamed of Otoñal.

His chest feels weightless now, ready to float to the heavens if it wasn't held down by the stone weight of the rest him. He wants to touch the sun and knock it down from the sky so he can have his dreams again. So he can have his brother again.

He has mourned Otoñal's death a hundred times. He rejoiced a thousandfold more when he learned his brother survived. Now it is just the constant ache of knowing he is alive, somewhere far, far beyond Origin's reach.

Maybe he should have gone with Javier after all.

The wind tugs at his hair. He picks up the slender bamboo wearily, letting the warm breath escaping the holes speak for him. _When words fail and the heart is full,_ Mother would say, _there is always music._

It's still there, somewhere. The weeping strings of the _kokyu_ that sounded like what Javier called a vi-o-lin. The _koto_ brought from a faraway port that only the dance master's fingers ever touched. The little bird whistles and the drums. The first _shakuhachi_ they ever danced to, the one his mother sometimes played. Otoñal would spend hours listening to the music.

He dips the _shinobue_ in time with the notes, feeling the melody pour out from some gaping crack in the wall forever imprisoning his past. It's something to sway to, something to chase, measured breaths he releases slowly, trill upon trill and he is there, the door opens, he is back there. His mother presses the end of the dragon flute to her lips and sends a fierce succession of notes across the room. His brother is dressed in his newest costume, tapping his feet, and the pendant on his neck catches the light when he sways around the creaking wood floor. And Origin watches, fiddling with a stonehead tip he polished earlier this morning, waiting for his turn to impress Mother with his newest skill.

The music goes on in his head, on and on, on and on. His mother never runs out of breath. His brother's feet never grow exhausted, his arms never tire, the sun never sets. No one _leaves._

The shell chimes knock into each other. The folded cranes take flight. A village is entombed in mud and snow.

"Your flute is crying," remarks a spring fairy, and the vision fades. "Why do you keep playing that song?"

"My mother," Origin replies hesitantly, remembering the _ryuteki_ that spent every night in a case next to her bed.

Haru nods as if he understands. "She taught you?"

"No. After the earthquake, I found this in the shrine. Hers broke," Origin explains, remembering the crushed halves of bamboo he buried in the spot where their house used to be. Those were painful days, everything lost and everyone mad, Haru was asleep in one of the thousands of trees in the forest and Origin grew tired of listening to his own voice.

"Javi must be practicing with Otoñal already," remarks Haru.

Origin barely manages a response, cutting off the song for a few seconds to murmur a quick _"hmmmm"_ in reply.

"I bet he'll show up late to practice again," adds Haru with a fond smile.

A reluctant _"uh-huhhhh"_ reverberates down the length of the bamboo, interrupting the melody once more. The sound is too windy for Origin's liking. It's an air leak. There are too many cracks for the bindings to hold it together anymore.

"Do you think he misses us?"

Origin moves the mouth hole away from his lips. "Javier doesn't know you're here," he points out.

Haru is quiet.

Origin rests the flute on his chin. "Why were you hiding from him?"

"I wasn't. He couldn't see me. His eyes aren't as sensitive in the dark as yours."

Origin squints in jest. "You're lying."

The fairy sighs.

Origin brings the flute to his lips again, searching. There's a tune in his head, still formless, still waiting to be sorted out.

"Javi thought I was an alien," says Haru, unprompted. The spring fairy must be feeling especially nostalgic today. He's spouting all kinds of random things now.

"What's that?"

"Someone from outer space. Someone from the moon."

"The moon?" repeats Origin, hardly able to believe it. This is one of the more incredulous things Haru has ever said, along with suns stuck inside houses and talking paintings. "How can anyone fit there? It's too small. And too high! Do people fly up there?"

Haru then explains something about _as-turo-nauts_ and _rocket-ships_ that don't look like ships and don't swim.

"I wanted to go with Javier," Origin confesses. "I need to find my brother. But the feathers won't go away yet, and Blackhead's companions threatened to burn down all that remains of the village if I leave."

"Isn't the medicine working?" Haru questions him.

"Slowly. Very slowly. The water's magic is so weak it might take months before the feathers are gone."

"Do the men know— do they realize you're _stealing_ from them?"

Origin isn't sure. Blackhead wouldn't care, but at least two of them seem to suspect he discovered their well-guarded trade secrets.

"Be careful," Haru warns him. "People like that will kill you before they let you go."

Haru is right. But the water's healing properties aren't enough without the other ingredients to enhance the effect. He has to risk it. It's his only chance.

"If you really miss Javier, you should go now. It's already summer; you don't have much time left. Don't wait for me."

To his surprise, the spring fairy simply shakes his head. "I waited eight years. I can wait a few more."

"You were asleep through most of them," Origin reminds him.

Haru rests his head against a fungus-encrusted branch. "I haven't recovered yet either," he admits. The breeze intensifies, scattering the last remaining cherry blossoms of the season and whipping around the spring fairy's hair and clothes. Haru's fabric top looks fragile and in danger of tearing, but somehow there is not a single frayed thread in the gossamer-thin cloth. "I wish I were stronger," his voice trails off, then he sits up and leans forward, suddenly optimistic. "Hey, maybe next year we can travel. I'll help you find your brother. I still remember where his house is," he offers. "And then we can visit Javi!"

A long pause. And then, "You really do miss him."

"I do," says Haru quietly, his gaze forlorn. "You miss him too, don't you?"

Origin stifles a bitter laugh. Does he? Not so much. Not as much. He doesn't—

He does.

"So why were you hiding when he came here?" Origin asks again with more than a twinge of frustration. He'd do anything to be able to talk to his twin for just one day; Haru had his chance to meet his friend and he wasted it.

"Javi has your brother already. And then he met you. He won Worlds twice. He placed fourth at the Olympics," Haru ticks off his reasons like a memorized list. "He doesn't need me to help him skate anymore. He doesn't need me… for anything," he finishes with a frown peppered with regret.

Something about that doesn't sit well with Origin.

"We're your clones," he reminds Haru. Whatever _clones_ means. It seems to be a special magic enchantment that lets people copy each other's face. "Not your substitutes. Mother told me, that even if you look the same way, and you can do the same things, you're different. She said, 'I can't call Otoñal when I want Origin, and I can't tell Origin what I want to tell Otoñal. What makes Ori special is not what makes Nyal special.' You said that before, didn't you? No one can replace my brother. No one can replace you either."

For the longest time, the spring fairy just stares at him. "Thank you," he says at last.

"You can have all my feathers. I don't want them," Origin tells him.

Haru watches a pair of seagulls circle the cliffs. "No thank you. I don't need them." He tosses a couple of snowflakes in the air. "Flying felt so special. When my wings broke down, I decided that if I could no longer fly, I would skate instead. That's how I met him."

"Javier."

Haru nods, recollecting their encounter in Russia. "He wasn't a very good skater back then. He was lazy… clumsy… his spins were terrible! Yet he was the only friend I had." Haru pauses and fumbles around for a round unripe fruit, which he kicks with such force it thuds into a tree a hundred yards away. He's smiling, for some reason. "I miss Javi. And skating."

"You can skate here. The magic lake never melts."

Haru considers his suggestion for a few moments. "But it's different over there," he says. "So many skaters, and they have quads— have you seen Javi's quad toeloop?"

Origin hasn't.

"It's really big. And he said your twin's jumps are even bigger."

_Ay caramba! Can you believe that every time he skates, everyone expects him to break another record! Reigning Olympic champion, reigning world champion, do they want him to walk on water, too?_

"Do you think Otoñal will remember me if we ever meet again?"

"I don't know," is all Haru can say. "I hope he will."

_And if he doesn't?_

Origin banishes the thought, diverting his focus back to his instrument. He fiddles with it restlessly until he finds the latest crack in the _shinobue._ Hopefully he'll be able to seal it with glue one last time. If he can't fix it, he'll just have to figure out how to make a new one. He puts it back in the drawstring bag and pulls another woodwind out. On a whim, he passes a long rim-blown flute to Haru. "Here. Try playing it."

Haru inspects the bamboo piece carefully. "What's this? A black _shakuhachi?"_

"No." Origin shows him the shakuhachi and points out how the bottom of the dark-colored flute doesn't flare out when compared to its Japanese counterpart. "It's a _xiao._ From China."

Haru blows hard. To his chagrin and Origin's amusement, no sound comes out. Origin then spends the next half hour teaching him how to adjust the angle relative to his chin and where to aim the airstream. Finally Haru produces a single wheezy note.

"You have a lot of things from China in these parts," observes Haru, after a few more partially successful blows. "It's strange how secluded this place is, considering the airport of Tsushima is only a few islands away."

"Where you met my brother."

"That day I found him unconscious on the beach, the Hanyu family was on vacation," he recalls. "I recognized the girl who used to skate at Ice Rink Sendai. It's a good rink, famously connected to a female skater who won the Olympics. I'm sure your brother loves it there."

Haru has his own reminiscing to do, so Origin collects his flutes and prepares to spear some fish in the stream for lunch. Yet he has one last question for the spring fairy.

"When you lost your wings," he starts, choosing his words carefully, "when you couldn't fly and you couldn't skate and no one wanted you anymore, what did you do?"

It takes Haru quite a while to answer that.

"The same thing you did," Haru says at length, with the sagely enduring patience of the seasons. "I just kept going."


	37. III

[Javi]

It's late tonight— it's morning, 3 a.m., and Javi is wide awake leafing through a historical account of Nagasaki's largest island. The lore of Tsushima is turning out to be more fascinating than he expected: the battles fought, the shrines, the ports, the former strongholds of the samurai clans, the fusion of Korean and Japanese traditions, the elusive mountain leopard cats, the legends…

Tsushima, he finds, was once frequented by Japanese pirates.

_Crucial to trade between Japan and her neighbors, and a gateway to central Asia, it was used as a naval base in the sixteenth century invasion of Korea and a strategic defense from the Chinese armies, as well as a shelter for refugees during the Jeju uprising. It's also the center of a long and conflicted history with Korea, as both countries have laid claim to the land sandwiched equidistantly in between._

No wonder Jun Hwan was familiar with the myth of the fairy swans.

_The main island, with six towns recently merged into one city, is split in two by three artificial canals. A few surrounding isles are inhabited in a chain of about a hundred more. On a clear day, the edge of South Korea lies visible from some of its mountain peaks. The climate is similar to Nagasaki's, but slightly cooler and with higher yearly rainfall._

Javi smiles wryly at that piece of information, munching down a few more rolled grain chips. He hated all those spring showers and the soggy patches of forest floor and the water leaking through holes in the tarps and how damp everything was all the time. Except that one sudden thunderstorm when he and Origin took cover in the caves and the boy asked him if koalas eat cacti, if there are castles in the Arctic and if pine trees grow in the Sahara. It still makes him chuckle to remember that.

He's been doing a lot of recollecting lately. The trip back was a blur; he found someone that night, and that someone got help from the authorities, and then he was being ferried away. Torn between getting to safety and worrying about Origin, he barely had time for any sightseeing. The scenery passed by, and he worried, and he slept, and he worried, and then there wasn't much else besides the steaming bowl of soba noodles and fresh salad and the _yamaneko_ souvenirs at the airport and then he was staring at the walls of his own apartment in Toronto.

But now the weeks have passed and he's had time to come to terms with it all. He treats himself to an online tour of Tsushima's attractions, sans the creepy island forest that still gives him the shudders when he thinks about it.

First comes the food, the flora and fauna, the festivals, the castle ruins, the sparkling waters of Aso Bay. And then pictures of a network of shrines catch his eye.

Century old steps haunt the _Kaijin Jinja_ in the town of Mine, dedicated to the guardian deity of the ocean, Toyotama Hime. There's the _Watatsumi Shrine,_ built in honor of Princess Toyotama's father, also known as _Ryujin,_ the sea dragon king who supposedly lives in a palace built of fishscales under the sea called the _Ryugo-jo._ He reads that oarfish are considered his messengers, often found on the shoreline preceding calamities like earthquakes and tsunamis, such as the twenty or so of them spotted in nearby beaches just before the great East Japan earthquake struck Tohoku in 2011.

He reads further on. There are legends and more legends, serpentine dragons and crocodiles and unsuspecting fishermen, maidens thrown overboard to appease the master of the sea; it's interesting how the old stories are so intricately entwined with their lives. How nature's tantrums are explained by malevolent beings, how castles and bridges were often completed after offering a _human sacrifice._

A shiver runs through his veins. This is crazy— everything about it is plain cruel and unfair, but he knows ritual sacrifices still do exist in remote communities, even in these modern times. He just never imagined it could happen to someone in his circle.

To Yuzuru Hanyu, of all people.

The ocean does seem to be a recurring them in Yuzu's life. Perhaps _Seimei_ was in fact some attempt to exorcise the sea's wrath. Yuzu, for all his achievements and international fame, is still just as human as anyone else, plagued with fears of things beyond his control, so desperately trying to be brave, to face it all. He deserves all of Javi's respect, and more.

Even if he does get on Javi's nerves sometimes.

He sighs and rolls over, letting his head sag fully into his pillow, shutting down his thoughts, too tired to read more. And then he dreams, strange dreams, the night he was running for his life in undersized pink flipflops, and Origin took him to the caves, and Origin let him go, and stayed.

He misses Origin. He wonders how the boy is doing now, if he's talking to imaginary forest fairies, if he's skating. If only Origin were here.

If only.

It is not an easy decision to uproot oneself from home and move to a foreign land. It was difficult for Javi, weeping by candlelight on his first chilly night in New Jersey, drifting here and there with the travelling camps like some kind of circus act around Europe, always needing something to hug at night or noon or anytime lest he be swallowed whole by every new city and every new language, stupid penniless boy with no place to belong to except a home a million miles away. It would be much, much harder for someone who lived in the solitude of the mountains all his life. Origin would be lost here. He doesn't know their ways, he wouldn't understand. It's a completely different world. If the crowds ever mistook him for his brother, there would be a stampede and then what would he do? And what would Yuzu say? Would he recognize his twin? Would he remember _anything?_

What a sad, complicated mess. Javi wishes he could help. But what can one single failing skater, with his own set of problems and worries and emotional overload to deal with, who doesn't have close ties to either boy's known family and isn't even Japanese, possibly do?

He hopes the morning light will give him answers.

It doesn't.

* * *

It's ice show after ice show from now on. Javi pulls himself out of daydream after daydream, distracting himself with his fellow skaters and mindless games. He lets out a wide yawn as he hits the shower to unwind after a long day spent trudging though traffic lights and artificial plants and electronic music and the chemical scent of air fresheners in hotel rooms. He yawns again, still suffering the after-effects of another nightmare that woke him up at four. He was in the forest again, but this time Morozov was chasing him down with a rifle for bombing his free skate at Helsinki. It's been this way for ages, always his old coach who haunts his sleep when stressed, along with more things trapped in his subconscious— failure, loneliness, sadness, fear.

Daytime is kinder. It's good and safe, like open skies over a frozen lake and patches of dappled yellow when the sun's rays finally break through the canopy, dispelling the horrors of the mist. Daytime brings bird songs.

The next leg of the tour takes them through the hilly countryside. It's the kind of place one gets lost in to find oneself, and it hits him like a flash how Yuzu would sometimes mention his phobia of being left alone in the mountains. This never made sense to him before, but his experience in the calamity-struck island has made him see things in a new light.

Back then he mostly stayed within the camp and the area near the river when he didn't have Origin or the other men for company. It was simply too easy to get lost in that maze of trees. Unless you've had years to memorize the tangle of roots and branches, the Shinigami Forest is no place to explore alone.

Compared to that, the ice of the venue feels buttery smooth. Unfortunately, his footwork has suffered; skating and hiking are two different skills, and the deft shifts of balance in one don't necessarily improve dexterity in the other. He catches himself watching his step more than necessary, a habit he picked up from having no flat terrain to walk on for over a month, where each pile of matted leaves hid a trap for unsuspecting feet and a single wrong move could mean a bleeding shin or a sprained ankle. The daily struggle with slippery tree roots and loose rocks thoroughly wore out his shoes and would have left him barefoot for most of it had the leather not been extra durable— he's so thankful for the foresight to bring his sturdiest pair— and it taught him to be extra cautious about everything. Now he can go anywhere and everywhere, without limit, without the pressing danger of strange things popping up out of the shadows, but it takes a while before he lets his guard down.

And in those quieter moments, all those questions slide out of the covers and do cartwheels in his head. What if Origin were here? What if they both escaped? He could show off one of his jumps and Origin would be staring at him, pursed lips and furrowed brow, memorizing the angles and rhythms. And then Javi would have to stop him because no, you don't learn quads in one day.

His brother would encourage it, though.

Yuzu still hasn't burned off the high of winning back his world title, and there he goes, living his best life in all his layback Ina Bauer glory, their cat-eared, collared rockstar, so happy and so ready for the next season to come rolling in that the assurance of losing staples itself to the back of Javi's throat.

First skater in history to land a quad loop. First Asian Olympic gold medalist in men's singles. History maker. And so much more. Somewhere between the years of competition, the endless hours of practice, and everything Javi doesn't know, the boy turned into a fine young man with a heart as noble as his triple axels.

 _He's like a fairy,_ the others murmur among themselves. Javi just shakes his head.

 _Fairies don't exist,_ he wants to enlighten them. _Believe me, I went looking for those myths. Look what I got myself into._

The music changes. Behind the curtain, titles and epithets don't exist; he is just another skater awaiting his cue. It's easy here, huddled up with the stage crew, peering into the dimmed show lights without an impassable gulf wedging Team TCC apart. When they step out, they are different countries, different dreams, and the shadows on the rink stretch on like the universe.

Someday Javi will fade into that crowd. But this young man?

Never.


	38. IV

[Haru]

Another tree dies in summer.

Leaves shatter in the brute force of the whirlwind, brown and yellow shards drift and curl up on the earth like stale dreams. They fall on Haru, a trembling weight on his slender shoulders. He brushes them off.

He treads lightly over the forest floor, careful not to disturb whatever insects take refuge in the moist leaf litter. In the space between sunrays and rainshowers, he catches a stream of light in his palm, feeling its warmth, its energy, the same kind that sustained him for so long.

The wreckage of a fighter plane glows in the distance, halfway between the camp and the cave entrance. Origin is talking to someone by the cockpit. He goes by the alias _Blackhead_ and no one seems to know his real name. Long straw blond strands dangle under his cap, over sun bronzed skin marked with a lion and a bear on either arm, a serpent coiled around his neck and stylized mountain peaks with the number _85_ in the middle. Haru draws near to listen, careful not to rustle the dew-dampened weeds. No need to spook the man out.

Origin starts to tinker with the charred controls, and Blackhead rests his elbows on the edge of the fragmented bubble canopy, pointing things out from the damaged cannon in the mangled left wing to the burnt stub where the control stick used to be. "My grandpa was a genius," he claims, pulling some wire through the missing hatch. "He survived when this thing crashed in the jungle. My parents weren't that lucky. They died in the mountains when I was a kid."

Origin nods distractedly. He turns a knob but it doesn't budge. The interior is coated with thick rust but some parts are still recognizable. Haru creeps by the spinner with three misshapen propeller blades.

"That was three decades ago. Flight 123 was cursed," Blackhead says with an unfading bitterness, drawing attention to the number _85_ tattooed boldly on his biceps. "They could have survived… if only the rescue team…" He coughs, thick and forced, and clears his throat. "Never trusted Japan Airlines after that. My pals only fly with _ANA_ around these islands."

Haru plucks a sap-coated twig from his hair, wondering. That tale sounds familiar. Back in the days when he was free to roam Japan, there were news stands commemorating the anniversary of a national tragedy in the mountains of the east.

"That was the year before Chernobyl exploded. You heard that story?"

The mention of Chernobyl makes Haru shudder. _Project Sekkisei_ may be doomed for good, but the horrors connected to it remain etched in Haru's memory. His arm spasms without meaning to, one of those strange human inconsistencies science hasn't fully worked out of his system.

Origin shakes his head.

"Well you should. That was the worst nuclear disaster in history next to the atomic bombs."

Origin just stares, puzzled.

"You don't know about that either, do you?"

"No," Origin replies.

"What's the capital of Japan?"

Origin blinks. "Sendai?" he guesses.

Blackhead chuckles. "You're way too isolated here, kid. At this rate, they're going to be sending missions to Pluto and you wouldn't know what the solar system even is."

Origin hangs his head, probably ashamed, more likely frustrated. Haru feels strangely protective. There's no reason to judge Origin just because of his inexperience. He ought to stop the man before he makes Origin feel even more depressed.

"Have you ever thought of seeing the outside world?" the ex-mechanic goes on. "Just so you'll know what it's like? School, a job, all those things people your age do in the city?"

"You won't let me go," Origin accuses him after a moment's contemplation, "or you'll destroy my home."

The older man grins darkly. "It's the boss I swear, not me. Believe me, if I had any say in this, I'd take you on the first flight to Fukuoka and show you around. You're a smart kid. You'll get used to it. There's more to life than just a never-ending forest."

"Skating—"

He pauses, and Haru notices the conflicted look in Origin's eyes. He's probably debating whether or not to mention his brother.

"Yeah, yeah, you can have your skating," Blackhead assures him. "Find a girl over there, do some ice dance, impress the judges. Frankly, there's a ton of better winter sports than that."

Haru's brow furrows with exasperation. That's _unfair._ Skating is the closest thing to flying, he longs to say, if only invisible fairy humanoids could protest.

The rest of the conversation is muffled by birds chattering. Blackhead tries to convince Origin a little more but he gives up eventually, and Origin stalks away to the lake like he does when he's upset. Haru needs a way to cheer up the boy's dejected spirits, and he knows just the thing to do the trick.

He hikes to the very edge of the forest and waits for passing tourist kayaks to hop into on their way back to the main island. The beach on the other side turns out to be less vibrant but more smooth than any on _Hakuchou Hisui._ The softness of wet sand gives way to a grass-lined path uphill, and then it's his first taste of concrete roads and three-storied buildings in a long time. He enters a store and takes note of the latest fashion trends, filches a glass of bubble tea when the owner isn't looking. He spots a smartphone lying unattended and pockets it, keeping his head low and taking extra caution not to be seen on camera as he wanders around in some person's striped hoodie and jeans. Walking in plain sight is such an inconvenience, but it's the only way to transport things without raising suspicion since only his clothes, which he never changed since leaving Russia, key in to his system and disappear along with him. No point in being invisible when you have a floating bag to mark your escape route.

He stays overnight. The next day he rides a kayak back and finds Origin resting on one of the branches in the late afternoon, playing _Snake_ _2_ on a borrowed Nokia 3360. Haru slings the bag over his neck and drags himself up the thickly armored trunk. He too has always loved the freedom of the canopy, though now he has to do the hard work climbing up like everyone else.

He taps Origin's shoulder. The other boy groans in frustration, and that means he just lost the game. "I thought you might want to see this," he says, handing over the tablet he stole… borrowed… stole… borrowed without permission and doesn't plan to return soon, and they both watch a downloaded segment of _Fantasy on Ice._

"Look! It's your brother. And Javi."

Two figures are in focus, clad in dark blue, standing back to back, playfully miming firing guns into the dark. Haru feels a pang of regret, wishing it were him skating in Otoñal's place. But he sees Origin's smile, bittersweet, how his eyes light up with gratitude and longing, and Haru rebukes himself for being so selfish.

Too bad there's no signal in this place. But outside the forest, near the sea, the connection is strong enough to send a message. He'll propose the idea to Origin later. Maybe they could try at least once before the battery runs out.

"Cat ears," Origin remarks, shaking his head fondly. "Nyal always liked cats." He's a lot calmer now than the first time Haru shoved a smartphone in his face.

It was a shock to both of them when they first saw Otoñal on video not long after Haru's sudden reawakening roughly a year and a half ago. The boy Haru left behind in Sendai, the twin Origin thought was lost to him forever, was alive and winning titles left and right. The Olympic gold medal. The Grand Prix Final. And, wonder of wonders, Javi was beside him, beaming proudly, much happier than Haru had ever seen him, splitting the podium with another Japanese skater in green. He and Javi seemed close, and to Haru's delight he learned they were training in Canada together, rivals and rinkmates and World champions.

There are other videos, more clips of Helsinki and some recent commercials. The last one is of Otoñal giving a short message. Origin notes the simple blue logo on the otherwise pure white jacket.

"Is _ANA_ a kind of plane?" he asks.

"It's an airline company."

"Blackhead mentioned it."

"It's one of the top airlines in the world, and also one of your brother's sponsors," Haru explains. "They give him money for his skating expenses."

Origin has a lot more questions. "What is an _a-tomic bomb?"_ he mumbles, recalling Blackhead's words earlier.

Haru takes his time recounting the history of the war. He tells Origin how airplanes were used for more than transporting people, how hundreds of thousands died and two cities disappeared overnight.

"My real name was inspired by paper cranes tied on a string," he adds, "the thousand paper cranes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

 _Yu-tsuru._ Pitiful, cruel name.

"Mother named us after paintings."

"So that's why your names aren't Japanese," Haru conjectures.

Origin shrugs absently. "She said the painters were famous." He replays his twin's swan-themed gala exhibition, smirking when the boy in snow-white feathers turns a messy landing into a sit spin. "Nyal looks like a fairy here."

Haru voices his assent, then swipes to a photo of Otoñal putting his medal on Javi. The champion of the night looks ecstatic, and Javi seems incredibly happy as well, even though such a loss must have felt terrible. The scene triggers a memory of another spring, of promises made so long ago that Javi must have forgotten.

_"Maybe I'll join the Olympics too. We could medal together."_

_"What color would you want?"_

_"Gold!"_

_"Pretty ambitious, aren't we?"_

_"But I can win, can't I? I could get on that podium, right? We can be there together?"_

It could have been him, he muses wistfully. It could have been Haru's gold draped on Javi's neck. It could have been _their_ rivalry, _their_ competitions, _their_ podiums. Their friendship, their club, their training home. But Haru made his choice, and he can't build the rest of life on _what-ifs._ He has to move forward.

"He and Javier are really good friends," remarks Origin.

Haru doesn't want to talk about Javi right now. An old resentment flares up beneath his skin, lost chances and faces deserving eternal hatred. "I'm skating," he says, switching topic.

Origin's brows lift in surprise, but he says nothing.

"I found new boots," he clarifies, referring to the pair he spotted at one of the shops. They're nothing like the customized pair he left behind in Moscow, but they should serve their purpose. Unless he needs to turn invisible, or jump triple Axels, which he doesn't right now.

"You _stole_ them."

"They were on sale. I was helping clear out the inventory," he reasons out, and as usual Origin refuses to believe his excuses.

"I never thought fairies could be thieves," is the reproach he gets.

"You steal your medicine too."

Origin chews his lip evasively. "That's different."

"How? We take what we need; what's wrong with that?"

"It's… Mother wouldn't have liked this."

Haru's pout softens. "Don't worry. I'll return them… someday," he does not promise.

Origin searches his face for a few moments before getting up to collect firewood for the camp. Haru heads to the lake with his new pair of bladed shoes.

He puts on the skates he took— he won't call it a robbery— and makes his first cut through the ice. The muscle memory is still there, but it takes a while to get used to this ice, to this sort of cushion on his heels, to the way the sun shines on the outdoor rink. His old boots were soft and light, fitted with microchips to let him disappear at a moment's notice, like the rest of his specialized attire. These things drag him down, and he resolves to steal… get… _buy_ a better pair next time.

He spins. He loses his balance and has to pause before trying again. Maybe the problem is that his head is muddled and tangled and overloaded with too much to think about. For all the advantages his synthetic body possesses, his mind is such a frail and confusing thing, so messy, so distinctively human.

He thinks of them and their strange, interconnected fate. Javi. Origin. Otoñal, who is everything Haru dreamed of becoming. He skates like he's flying off the rink; when he jumps, he grows his own pair of wings. If things had gone differently, maybe it would have been Haru in the boy's place— Haru the World medalist and Haru the Olympic champion.

Haru, the humanoid pawn.

Once upon a time, he was okay with that.

But he's had months and months to reflect. Estranged from the whims of technology, he is no longer a mere experiment monitored over trackers, slave to the demands of science, shut down at will. His existence is more fragile than ever, but he has this: the sky, the wind, the rustling of water paths. And himself.

Freedom.

That's what flying is like, what skating tries to imitate. You can go anywhere and do anything and nothing can hold you back. A prospect less certain but more real than the allure of the life he was promised: never get sick, never grow old, a teenage body with teenage drive, in the prime of health, and perfect.

They lied.

He found he could only hold up for half a year. Normal human processes like sleep would be delayed for six months, and then autumn and winter would be spent in deep cryogenic sleep, regenerating himself. The next model addressed those issues; it was even more perfect, and the next was even better, and with each new unit rolled out, Haru would slip closer to the bottom of the heap.

Yet he kept on, challenging his wings to daring aerial feats, corkscrews and falcon-like trajectory shifts. He'd compete with the others in races across the uninhabited mountains, circling Fujiyama and nearby nature reserves. Postponing the inevitable, the moment they'd tell him he was a waste of resources and scrap him like the others that that came before. It was that unflinching determination that ruined him, in the end.

His wings finally broke. They couldn't be repaired anymore, and in an effort to save the rest of him, both appendages were severed permanently.

The sky was off-limits, forever.

But whoever this brain and soul originally belonged to was a fighter. If he couldn't fly, he could skate, gliding and twisting in the air, and in those fleeting moments, he'd be free. He'd slip into trains and planes around the archipelago in search of good rinks and skaters to imitate. A bit of cash swiped from unsuspecting pockets and he'd get the whole day to spend doing tricks on the ice. Single-minded persistence led to progress; he learned singles, doubles, triples. He swore to be the best skater in the world.

Because what else could he be? Imperfect meant defective; defective meant replaceable, and Haru wanted to stay.

If he worked hard, maybe he could.

He knew he could.

Then a change of leadership shook things up. They assigned him to a team in Russia, confined to their base in Moscow, with bodyguards and more limitations imposed. His world shrank to daily examinations and weekly trips to the rink and back. Passive data collection took a backseat to performance tests; they stuck so many things into him he began to feel like one of those faceless robots operating the factories.

And so the years passed cloistered in exile until the day he met a Spanish skater boy. There was another boy, and another, and the stretch of blank space that seemed to last forever, and now Haru is here, alive in this body with all its flaws and limitations and the question of whether or not some part will malfunction irreversibly and cause his system to shut down. This time around, there won't be a second chance.

His boots slice sharp and clean through the ice, spiraling around the edge in familiar curved patterns. _Is it beautiful_ , he wonders. _Is it still beautiful?_

He thinks of himself like some treasure kept under lock and key, rusting away. The only things that await him are distant rinks and unwelcoming skies, a friend who forgot him and a friend who thinks he's some kind of magical being. There is nothing special or precious about him now; every feat of scientific engineering has an expiry date and his is looming around the corner. He has freedom at last, like he always wanted, and all he feels is _hollow._ He thinks of things he was chasing, things he knows he can never have, things he's gained in the slow creep of the seasons, and now that he's piecing it all together, he notices what was missing all along. It was more than just his wings, more than just the chance of a better future.

He never had a home. He never had… anyone.

A place to belong to. Someone who wants you. Being cherished and loved. People are brave when they have somewhere to call their own. And Javi has that. Origin has memories to hold on to. Otoñal has Sendai.

Haru has a pile of unfulfilled dreams, men in white coats who saw in him great value for research and nothing more, who raised his hopes and dashed them to the ground, and passed him around like old child's toys when they found no use for him anymore. Maybe they could have fixed him. Maybe they could have built him perfectly in the first place. Maybe he didn't have to be a mistake. He wouldn't have to question his worth, the way Javi would back in the day.

Javi, clumsy, funny Javi, who never believed in himself, has been steadily reaching his dreams one after the other, while Haru is in stasis, seventeen, stuck. No moving forward, no going back while the rest of the world keeps turning. Not good enough for a humanoid, not good enough to be human either, doomed to keep existing, this and only this, until he winks out.

He searches for the anger, the ore of resentment he's been mining through the decades, lava and lightning, but finds it ebbing away. Now he is only empty. There is nothing but echoes.

He pushes off again, eyes closed in wingless flight, letting his blade pierce through the dark thicket of regret. He watched Javi's performance in Vancouver six years too late. He never kept his promise, never came back, and when he finally saw his friend again, he couldn't bring himself to face Javi. The struggling skater who once looked to him for advice has climbed to the top and he— what is he even good for now?

The setting sun pours its rays on Haru, and from this angle the cracks on the ice light up like a fire that burns and burns. Emotions he never felt before when he skated lend him some kind of tragic grace as he lets himself break, lets himself grieve lost years and lost chances.

No tears will ever drip from laser-cut polymer eyes, but these regrets, these doubts, they're human. He's still puzzled about how people behave, why they act without thinking and cling to impossible dreams and indulge in irrational things, yet those sensations, those emotions, they're his too. Otoñal's all-consuming passion for competing, his obsession with perfection, his endless drive to be better, Haru understands. Origin's sense of loss when all he ever knew was ripped away from him, he's familiar with that. And Javi, lost and confused and helpless, he gets it. He might have failed as a machine but there's that part of him that can be human too, and maybe that is enough.

He hopes it will be enough. He wants to see Javi and Otoñal again; he wants Origin to be reunited with his brother and Javi to recognize him, and the time for running away is long past.

 _I'll find you,_ he promises. _Both of you._

Moonlight shimmers on the lake tonight, wrapping him up in quiet solitude. There is no one here besides his own shadow to share the scene with, yet no ache clouds his heart. He has nowhere to belong to, but he can build one. Friends who forget can remember. His meaningless past means nothing, because he has tomorrow, and however many tomorrows remaining, and from this moment onward, he won't need to live them in wasted regret.

He kisses the ice in gratitude. When you can't fly, you find a way. When that doesn't work, you turn elsewhere and try again. And if your wings are broken, you need someone to help you up, to remind you to walk, to crawl, to keep going. Someone like Javi.

Those persons last forever.

They're called _home._


	39. V

[Javi]

So today someone messaged him on Twitter and he's losing it.

 _Javier win medal in Olympics! Please do best. See you!_ – @yuushuuuuuuuuuu

Javi splashes cold water on his face. It can't be _him._ That's impossible. He towels off, glances at the screen again, abuses the tap, and more water drenches his forehead.

It's not Origin, regardless of what gut instinct tells him. It's not, it's not, it's not, it's not.

A swift glance at the clock, eleven-thirty. He slept in again. He hauls himself to the club and puts his right foot in the wrong boot.

Yep. Off to a great start, indeed.

The weekend practice quickly morphs into a disaster sitcom written by a six-year-old on sugar high. The ice blurs like the edge of a pool; he's too distracted to take off properly on his jumps, too exhausted to rotate them. He falls and falls and gets tired of falling. When he spins, his toepick catches on a hole and he finds himself on his knees, palms-down on the frozen surface, groaning. He rises to his feet, dusts off those mistakes and finishes the last twenty torturous minutes, wishing the clock would please, please tick faster. Some fluke fail jars his elbow, his back is screaming bloody murder, what should have been a flying camel results in him lying on the rink floor, arms shielding his eyeballs from the judging glare of ceiling lights.

_Okay, stay cool. Focus, Javi._

The next element is… actually never mind that. Brian watches in disbelief as he brushes white sprinkles from his pant leg, like he's not even trying. Well he _is,_ but his boots have a mind of their own, and he's sore, he's tired, he woke up just hours ago and already it feels like he ran straight from Vancouver to Toronto. It's a relief when the session's over and he can finally go home and sort out his scattered thoughts, and maybe try to contact Origin— if it really was Origin, which he doubts—

Oh, his shirt is on backwards. He takes it off and reverses it, cursing, hoping no one noticed his stupid blunder. All is well, _all is well,_ until someone chooses that moment to tap his shoulder. He whirls around so fast that he almost knocks into his training mate, which would have been the crowning achievement in Javi's list of spectacularly awesome reasons this day should never have existed.

"You left your water bottle," the other says, earphones in place, calm in all the ways Javi is not.

"Yuushuu! I mean, er, _Yuzu,"_ he quickly corrects himself.

 _"Yuushuu?_ Your accent's all over the place today!" Jeff exclaims. He leans closer and whispers conspiratorially, "Okay, tell me, who's the girl?"

"Wha—"

"You're always on your phone. Your head's been in the clouds all afternoon!" Jeff teases with the airs of someone who just caught him red-handed. "Who's the lucky señorita, Javi?"

The lucky _who?_ "It— it's not Miki," he stammers. It hasn't been Miki for a long time. He barely even thought of her since he came back from the tour.

"I think Javi thinking of Olympics; he's thinking, how to beat me," Yuzu pipes up, tweaking the device stuck to his ears.

 _I wasn't_ , he murmurs to himself guiltily, but "Yeah, I'm gunning for gold this time!" is a very plausible explanation for the absolute mess he's been since he rolled out of bed.

"No, no, gold is mine!" Yuzu declares smugly. "I won't lose to you!"

"And I'm not giving up without a fight," he challenges back, relieved that despite all that floundering around, there's something left in him that makes Yuzu consider him a rival still.

It's simple and easy afterward, typical banter between training mates, and to his credit Javi successfully avoids colliding with the door or any other _highly dangerous_ stationary object.

Jeff laughs.

In the end, he never does bring home that water bottle.

* * *

The days of easy laughter end all too soon. The tour is over; summer hiccups its last flush of green and then he's back at Cricket. Back to training. Back to hyper-focused, over-competitive Yuzu.

Javi frowns. The tension is so thick. Sochi wasn't like this. Boston wasn't like this. Even last season, with all the _kuyashii-kuyashii-kuyashii-desu_ of losing the past two World Championships and the ever problematic quad loop, was nowhere half as bad as this. These days Yuzu is as affectionate as a statue, and Javi is on edge all the time. It's his least favorite part about competing, that icy glare of Yuzuru sizing him up like the enemy, reminding him of where they stand, friendship pushed aside until they are nothing but rivals for a single scrap of gold.

It's merely Yuzu's way of setting boundaries and Javi is a fool to keep hoping the season wouldn't have to play out like this. He wants a Yuzu who is not _this_ Yuzu, he wants the past Yuzu, the Yuzu whose hair he would ruffle for no reason, the Yuzu who would whine cutely and beg him for jump advice in broken English, the Yuzu whom he could hug for real because no matter who won or lost, they were Team Cricket and everything would be okay between them. The Yuzu before Boston Worlds.

If by some miracle of miracles he snatches gold from the defending Olympic champion, he may never see that Yuzu again.

He throws the wrapper of an energy bar in the bin and walks in, steeling himself, all senses trained on the moving shadow casting a spell on the ice. It's his rinkmate, the eternal mystery, the boy with a soul so big his body explodes trying to contain it.

They call him crazy ambitious, a one in a million athlete who makes a game out of challenging everything, defying even the skies in his quest for greatness.

 _Love me_ , he pleads.

And the people adore him, fawn over him, coo when he so much as scratches his head. The yellow plushies stack up like the pyramids of Giza. His fan club is the ninth wonder of the world. His cage is more intricate now— crystal dewdrops, moonlight, ripped tendons and shredded glass. The best dancers have broken feet, and his body is wrecked in too many places to count. Still he keeps on, beyond the pain and beyond the trauma, winning titles, dressing himself in clouds and rainbows, grasping for skies no one else ever dared to reach.

 _Love me_ , he screams, quietly now.

There are people with footprints too large to follow and people who cannot fit in the span of two arms. Yuzu is one of them, Javi realizes. His gaze is too great and too far, too brilliant for the confines of a single oval patch of white.

Maybe a part of him remembers home when he sees his shadow. Maybe he touches the ice in fervent hope that someday, someone will hear from the other side.

 _Your brother misses you too_ , Javi longs to say. But he holds his tongue. Now is not the time for this. Yuzu is busy gearing up for the Challenger Series, then the Grand Prix, and the last thing he needs is to lose concentration right before the most important competition of his life.

He'll mention it after Pyeongchang.

* * *

Time flies now that he's absorbed in training. He and David still haven't decided on the free, but the short program is looking good. He lands all his jumps in a runthrough he channels all his performing prowess into and everyone present claps loudly at the end. It feels amazing, sports media is in for a surprise, how dare they count him out of the race, he's not over yet.

Not to be outdone, Yuzu gives them a taste of his own program, Chopin's familiar strains with a quad loop this time, and oh— that was a quad Lutz. He flubs the landing, but wow. _Wow._ Javi applauds too when it's finished, but his smile is thin as a knife. He can't do that. He's too old to upgrade his tech, and the lifespan of a quad's novelty these days is woefully short. Yuzu has Nathan, Boyang, Shoma, and all the other young ones to play with. Someone like Javi with only a Sal and a toeloop has no place anywhere near the top, and that is the crux of the problem. It's going to be his last shot at the Olympics; what's the point of two world medals if he peaked two years early?

Brian notices, of course.

Javi's on the bench one day, contemplating the sunset of his career when his coach comes by and pats him on the shoulder.

"Hang on Javi. I still have faith in you," Brian says, settling down beside Javi with a bright sparkle in his eyes.

"Even when no one else does?"

"Well if even you don't believe in yourself then we got a problem. But Javi, remember, it's the Olympics. Crazy things happen. Who you expect to win may stumble, the one you think would never make it could beat you all. Nothing's impossible. And besides, third time's the charm, yeah?"

"Yuzu did it at first try," he says dejectedly.

Brian gives him a reproachful look and he sighs. "I know, I know. Not everyone's a Yuzu. I'm sorry for whining."

Brian doesn't lift his hand. It stays there, a comforting weight, the way his Dad would do when he was a kid and his classmates bullied him for his choice of career. It means the world to him. As long as his coach still trusts him, there is hope.

"I know the podium probably feels like Mount Everest now, but you have all season to prepare. Tough climbing, but you'll get there, don't worry."

The same motto from years ago, when he rose from last at Worlds to World Champion. At the flip of a switch everything changes. There's a chance for him yet.

Brian remarks that Javi's key to winning is to keep his focus this season sharper than ever, and he holds on to those words, despite his failing stamina and the thousand doubts plaguing his head. He is older, and weaker, but he remembers that boy with midnight eyes in the sea of firelight and finds the strength to go on.

_I will win this. I will get this medal. I will I will I will._

"Hey Brian?" he says, just when the other is about to return to his office, "I think I know the music for my free."

* * *

His efforts pay off. Javi wins Autumn Classic.

He smiles at Yuzu on the podium; they laugh and pose for photos, and fans and staff alike congratulate him for his victory. It feels great after the heartbreak of Worlds, and it does wonders to his confidence heading into the season. Yuzu doesn't look as disappointed as he could have been, so he counts that as another win.

Origin still does not show up.

He replied to the message, asking how the boy was and if he really planned to visit, but all he's gotten is radio silence. Javi's sorely tempted to just drop everything and go back. He doesn't miss being lost in a wilderness but he misses Origin. Misses him the way he sometimes misses Yuzu, who walks through these same doors and halls but stays distant as the stars of another galaxy.

The week after Montreal is a good one; he lets himself relax a bit before the Grand Prix is in full swing. The week after, he notices how the atmosphere in the club has changed. Yuzu's eyes burn fierce and hot like he's possessed, the lipsyncing gets more intense, and more than once Javi steps aside to let the other blaze down the corridor like a fireball. It's not good, and then it's bad, and then he finds himself being let off early to deal with the embarrassment of their head coach himself having to break up a fight.

"You're jealous," is his training mate's offhand remark one Saturday when jumps are not working for both of them. It's swift and concise, and painful. Is Yuzu baiting him? Is this part of the strategy— perhaps some kind of tactic in _The Art of War_ that he was too lazy to finish reading? Has Yuzu always been this cruel?

He grits his teeth, breathing deep. It's normal, Yuzu's like this when he's extremely stressed, and of course who wouldn't be with a whole country pinning their Olympic hopes on him, Javi is lucky not to have to endure that sort of pressure, it's okay, it will pass, no big deal.

Then Yuzu's doing a perfect quad Sal combo, showing off with that blasted self-confident smile while Javi struggles with new body pains and a growing weariness that never manifested in his younger years. _You can't catch me_ , Yuzu eyes seem to say. _You can't catch up this time._

Why, he ought to strangle—

For the record, Javier Fernandez does not usually have violent tendencies.

_Usually._

He does have his temper, something he's been working on for years, something he's still trying to tame on days like this when his anger flares hot and gets the best of him. Yuzu glides right in front of him again nonchalantly, tauntingly close, and Javi finally skids to a stop.

"I won't lose to you this time," Yuzu declares, bold and sure and colder than the ice itself.

The air crackles with more than regret. Javi feels the moment Yuzu shuts him off, hears something snap, like an icicle, or camera film, or perhaps his brain telling him he's been an idiot all along.

He has a lot of sharp words of his own just waiting to be unleashed, so many ways he can answer that, so many things he can bring up, like a two-year losing streak at worlds and _who helped you learn that quad Sal anyway?_

He almost does. Almost.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Coach Tracy moving closer, getting ready to intervene, and he probably should step back and be the more mature one— he's the older guy, for goodness' sake— but for the first time since he stumbled into that coastguard vessel pleading for a ride to the airport, his mind is calm. He does not shout. He does not make a fuss. He's not even mad.

It simply doesn't matter, he decides. He doesn't care. He will win what he will win and even the great Yuzuru Hanyu cannot stop him from reaching his own destiny. Yuzu can hit him with all the barbs in the universe and it doesn't matter because Javi doesn't care because they're rivals and this is what rivals do.

This is what rivalry is. It masquerades as friendship. It isn't.

Once upon a time, it could have been more than that. But there are training mates, there competitors, there are superstars, and there is Yuzuru, who has no qualms about throwing away every single thing for the sake of his dream. This the cost of a gold medal and Javi is weary of it all. The years lay frozen before them, severed ties to the battlefield, they're on opposite ends now.

"You're nothing like him," Javi says at last, and it speaks volumes.

It catches Yuzu off guard. He blinks in surprise. "Who?"

Javi chuffs and shakes his head. Let him figure it out if he can. Let him try to remember. _You won't lose but you won't find your brother either._

"Never mind," he says with finality, and steps away from the ice. Now Yuzu's the one left staring at his back. He hears a crash landing on his way out and knows it's Yuzu's, but he steels himself and refuses to turn around.

 _Goodbye,_ he says to the boy in the silver-strapped brown costume grasping his hand with shaking palms at the Rostelecom presscon half a decade ago. _See you at the Final._

Brian splits their training schedules from then on.

* * *

Tonight he sinks into the couch, thighs sore from an uncharacteristically peaceful practice that somehow sapped all his strength. For some silly reason he's had the urge to rewatch old footage of Finlandia.

During the medal ceremony, the camera pans to him and Yuzu, chocolate and strawberry, so many smiles shared between them. It had been an exhausting week and Yuzu was fighting to keep both eyes open, but the giggles when Javi tickled his back were so genuine, so real.

Javi misses that.

He recalls a time when this was fun, when it wasn't about speculating which federation the judges would favor or what skaters would get lucky or whether reporters would find ways to twist your words into half-truths the whole world would bash you for. It took a time-out isolated in the mountains, rediscovering the ice with Origin, to remind him how much of burden it's become lately, how much he wants the pure thrill of it back.

_This is the price of a gold medal._

He vowed he and Yuzu would not be Plushenko and Yagudin. He promised they would always be friends on and off ice.

But now…

He rubs his forehead, sighing. Why is he so affected? These are mind games. It's Yuzu, for goodness' sake. This is part of his competition strategy, and rather than moping, Javi should be focusing on his own battleplan. There's no reason for him to be this agitated, except…

Except.

Except Yuzu is supposed to be kind, is supposed to be supportive, is supposed to be on _his_ side, is supposed to be that one person he looks forward to seeing every time he gets on the rink, that one person who'll listen every time his coach berates him, who'll drag him around the city just for a stuffed toy he can barely afford and steal his food and tease him over bowls of steaming ramen and—

 _That's... not Yuzu,_ he realizes, eyes wide.

It's not.

It's Yuzu but not Yuzu, it's Origin to Yuzu, it's not Origin, it's his mind playing tricks on him, it's a daydream, it's a hallucination, it's Russia. It's those years he sealed away in a box labelled _The Past_ and forced himself to forget. It's been so long, and he _survived,_ Morozov is gone from his life, and he is not a failure, not good-for-nothing, not useless, and no, his parents did not regret having him; never again will he let himself believe those lies anymore. But they keep leaking out, bleeding under his subconscious; on days like this they clamor to be heard and it's all Javi can do to drown out their cries with the punctured soundscape of videogames, or the sizzle of a buttered pan, or calls to his girlfriend, or skating. Anything to block the sickening throb of his heart before it destroys him.

But he has to deal with this. He has to face them— the hardest parts, the saddest parts, the flashbacks that creep into his nights and leave him wide awake, wrapped in his blanket and clinging to his pillow for dear life. It's what the therapist warned him: Pandora's Box must open eventually, and he's been too scared to do more than touch the lock.

 _Coward,_ the voice in his head mocks him. _Grow a backbone, you fool!_

He grabs his coffee. The cup shivers in his grip.

The Olympics is only for the brave, and he knows it. He failed at Sochi when a careless answer turned the unseen crowd into a thousand Morozovs shredding his fragile concentration to pieces. The stakes are higher now; to get that razor-sharp focus he'll be needing at Pyeongchang, Javi has to clear all the obstacles in the way. Including this. Time to stop hiding. Time to be brave.

He takes the first peek inside.

There's a voice in there, throwing an empty bottle at him and barely missing his ribs, hurling insults at every inch of his existence. He hates that voice. It's terrifying.

A heavy hand grips his collar and shakes him so hard the fabric starts to rip. And then his hair… Morozov grabs a fistful of his hair… and pulls. It _hurts._ He shuts his mind, makes the images go away.

_Stop, stop, stop. Breathe. Breathe._

_Be brave, Javi. He can't hurt you anymore._

He fights to breathe. Maybe someone else would have made it through with a few scratches, but Javi _crumbled._ It almost destroyed him.

He presses his knuckles, leper-white now, into his temples. Yuzuru has an entire half of his life locked away, but if he had the chance, he would do everything to get the memory back. He's brave like that. That's why he keeps winning.

If Javi wants that medal, he has to be stronger. He has to try.

He dives back in, cautiously, keeping a throw pillow under his arm to steady the shudders. He's at the rink and this time his coach is nowhere to be seen. But there is another voice, younger, there is no cruelty in it, no judgement. Amid the daydreams and the nightmares, and the moments he'd hide in the locker shaking in fear that his coach would yell, or worse, beat him up, the warmth of companionship lingers— a tiny candleflame of happiness that carried him through, and he wants to remember this.

The room feels colder all of a sudden. It's Autumn, the season of memories, of chilly air and walkways painted red and gold. He goes back, to Vancouver, New Jersey, Morozov. All the pain, all the abuse. All the times he screamed and no one heard him.

 _Deep breath, deep breath._ He rubs soothing strokes up and down his chest, over his lungs, recalling what the counselor had said before the therapy sessions became too painful to continue. It was Morozov's indifference and not his own incompetence that crushed him, and there wasn't a thing he could have done to make his coach care more, no way to add an iota of value to himself and his skating in that man's sight. _You have to appreciate yourself,_ he's learned in his years of struggle from the lowest lows, _no one else will do it for you._ It was all in the past, and all that heartbreak only made him tougher.

He is stronger now. He is.

More deep breaths, a glass of water, and he delves deeper. The feeling of a sated stomach after weeks of unfulfilling meals. The sort of hunger that turns a bowl of steaming noodles into a feast, that sort of hollowness filling him up like a child's balloon held hostage by too thin jackets and worn out gloves as the stinging cold digs its barbs into his neck and cheeks. Giraffes on the roof— okay, that was a hallucination. Not real. A threadbare bonnet. Mending holes in a sweatshirt. Forgetting his change at a bakeshop. Ramming a soccer ball into someone's car mirror. Snowflakes and a rinkmate. Yuzu.

No, not Yuzu. Yuzu was still in juniors and the blurred face looked a little older. Seventeen or eighteen. Yu— yu—

_Yutsuru._

It was too vivid to be a dream, but it couldn't not be one either. The face and proportions were eerily similar. But Origin exists, and who knows, maybe there might be another brother… or cousin… or lookalike neither of them knows about. Maybe he's the fairy. Javi vaguely recalls a discussion about aliens and robots and something like that.

 _Haru,_ he remembers. Haru is his nickname. Spring to his darkest winter.

Maybe Origin really was talking to someone in the woods. Maybe part of the legend was real. He wants to meet Haru again, whatever or whoever he really is. He may or may not be a figment of Javi's imagination he dreamed into existence to protect his mind from a complete breakdown— he'll get to that later — he hopes Haru's real, and that they'll meet again. He has a lot to thank him for.

_"What do you do when the sky gets mad?"_

_"Sing to it so the tears will go away. The sky gets lonely too."_

The memories come rippling back. Javi's past is tangled up like a deep, dark forest. Just like before, he needs help finding the way out.

And he's been trying, he's always been trying. But therapy isn't magic; signing up for appointments and popping a few pills and expecting to leave brand new doesn't solve everything. He's been skirting around the dark parts, staying friendly and projecting a beautiful illusion of happiness but never truly opening up. In that way, perhaps, Yuzu is stronger than him. Something like _Requiem of Heaven and Earth_ would expose too many scars he was never able to heal.

Maybe that's why he was so drawn to Origin. Even before he learned of the shared heritage between the boy from Tsushima and the boy from Sendai, he felt a bond connecting them from the moment he saw those mistrusting eyes peering at him across the camp. Because once upon a time, _he_ was the lonely one. Origin is someone who knows what it's like to be so lost, to ache for human presence like a gnawing hunger, to seek solace in a blank expanse of ice, to not be home, to dream of impossible things, to find it hard to trust people yet to hang on to anyone like a lifeline because yours is so close to breaking. The cold of rain and the cold of snow and the cold of furious glares when you're on your knees hit different when you have no one but your boots and an empty pocket, no support system, no one cheering you on, no one to look out for you— the kind of alone when you wish the wind would speak louder. He's been through that too, and he _understands._ It goes beyond empathy. It's deep in the soul, like a kinship between them, as real as every time Morozov cursed his name because of a girl who didn't even like him.

 _We are all puzzle pieces with so many ways we can't fit, yet are always connected, somehow._ His mother told him that when he moved to Cricket and kept gushing about how good his new training base turned out to be. And she was right. His greatest regret from summer feels like a bonfire raging in his belly. As soon as he makes the podium, even a drug cartel can't stop him from getting Origin back.

* * *

The therapist he sees the next Tuesday has kind brown eyes. On his first scheduled appointment, she pops into her office with an anecdote about candy bars and a paper bag with rolled-up inspirational quotes to choose from. She reminds him of Tracy. One smile and Javi feels the jitters evaporate.

"Hello, Javier!" she greets him in a warm voice, rich and milky like the Spanish deserts he loves.

"Hi!" he grins back and before he realizes it he's retelling the first chapters of his abridged autobiography to someone he just met.

She rummages through old travel photos of her family, comparing destinations. He appraises the sayings on her wall.

"Too much stress can make you physically self-destruct. Everyone reacts differently. Some choose only to remember, some only choose to forget, some do neither, and some don't have the option," she tells him.

Javi hums his agreement, thinking of Yuzu. And his twin.

They talk a lot. She listens. She asks him for a recipe for gingerbread.

Javi used to be a lost boy. He likes to think he moved on from that. But here he feels like a child again, and safe. The warmth of the tiny room enfolds him like a cocoon. He's okay. He'll be okay.

Training goes well, too. No longer do flashes of anxiety hit the second his jump axis starts tilting. He can land or he can fall; there is no shame in that anymore. His other rinkmates are working hard, too, and it only inspires him to push himself further when he lifts barbells at the gym.

Rostelecom brings Yuzu another silver. Javi shrugs when he finds out and wishes him better luck next time.

He completes the counseling sessions that month in a much better headspace than before. The therapist hugs him when he leaves, and he smiles as a huge chunk of his load lifts off his chest, dissipating like smoke. He feels more free now. He feels ready.

 _Gold or nothing_ , he resolves, and boards the flight to China.

He goes home with nothing. In a bizarre turn of events, his food-poisoning-induced disaster skate drops him out of contention for the Grand Prix Final.

That was not supposed to happen at all.

 _Give it time_ , Brian advises him over the phone. The program isn't ready yet.

So Javi waits.

It will be beautiful at the Olympics.

* * *

In another unfortunate twist that sends TCC into shock, Yuzu injures himself at the NHK trophy, withdrawing from the Grand Prix and possibly ruining his chances at Pyeongchang. It's serious, really serious, and even though Javi hasn't seen him yet, he can't help but feel worried. Because this is what rivals do. They worry about each other's health.

Right.

The calendar flips another page and Yuzu still hasn't recovered from his injury at the NHK Trophy. _How is Yuzu?_ the press asks. _Yuzu, Yuzu, Yuzu._ Yuzu, injured Olympic champion Yuzu, and he barely has any room to breathe.

 _He needs time to heal. We have to give him space,_ Brian requests of them. But media is persistent. His fans will do anything for a crumb of news about their idol. Javi gets to be the information desk in their overglorified training relationship. He of course is expected to take his place beside Yuzu, as if there was a law stating that podium sharing between training mates is supposed to be a thing. Their friendship has simmered down to a simple formality and this is so, so wrong.

He knows Yuzu deserves his support, so he puts the bitterness of the season aside and smiles when Yuzu limps to the rink for the first time since November. He drags himself to bed at dawn with Pablo Alboran's newest single stuck in his mind and all he sees are flashes of black and gold and starry, starry skies.

He wakes up at midnight. His shirt is drenched in sweat.

He reaches for his phone. There's a message buried under a mess of notifications.

 _Javier don't forget plushie. Please win medal. Otoñal too._ — @yuushuuuuuuuuuu

Javi tosses his phone somewhere in the tangled covers, buries his head under the pillow, and prays for no more disturbing dreams.

* * *

Morning comes and Javi sprints through the door forty minutes early, beaming his very best smiles into his teammates' hearts.

"Someone's really excited today," Jun Hwan notices.

"Jun is the one who should be excited. The competition will be in his country," Tracy remarks over a cup of coffee.

"Just don't overthink it," advises Brian, and Javi knows he's reliving his own triple flip in Calgary.

Flips and Salchows, such cruel, sadistic things. And Lutzes of course. Quad Lutzes.

"It's just like Brian said. You tried hard, you worked hard, you can do it," he tells Yuzu before leaving for Pyeongchang. His teammate— yeah, his _team_ mate, maybe not his closest friend in the world, but his teammate— gives him a shaky smile and together they head to Korea to face their destiny.

Hail to Don Quixote and his fever dreams. Maybe this one will come true.


	40. VI

[Javi]

It's Javi's last Olympics, and he knows with unfailing certainty that his Waterloo was never the young quadsters or his own body clock winding down. It's this: how much unspoken space he and Yuzu can cram between them during practice, how well they can match each other stroke for stroke, how real the bonds of six years of teamwork can be. It's a fragile thing, he realizes once again, thinking of the clash at the Grand Prix that never happened. They're drawing swords for one crown, but he can't stay mad at someone who injured himself training quads with a fever and he doesn't want to stay mad for any other reason on earth. This is their last battle. One final hurrah and it's over, they'll go their own separate ways, he will never ever look at Yuzu from a competitor's point of view again.

He steadies his limbs. His blades cut into practice ice like diamonds and he prepares to prove himself one more time. Yuzu leads the way and they fall back into the TCC routine, that immortal pattern of crisp strokes they've traced enough times to perfect. It brings to mind a random nature documentary, of all things.

_Juvenile albatrosses form groups and practice dancing year after year, over and over again. At last they find a partner to dance with and they pair off and keep repeating that same dance until their steps are in perfect unison._

Yuzu glances over his shoulder, laughing, trolling everyone, breezing round his competitors, creating a facade of perfect health. Even with an unhealed ankle, he is still too far away for Javi to reach. Too fast to keep up with, too strong, too determined. They proceed to cool down the way they've always done it, and Javi lets him go five paces ahead and simply tries to keep up the best that he can, accepting the fact that Yuzu will not wait for him, and no matter how many accolades are in his collection, nothing will ever match Yuzu's feats, and they will never truly be in sync, or equals.

 _It's okay._ He's made peace with that too.

After all, this young man is no albatross. He stoops to no one.

He's a swan.

* * *

On the night before the free program, Javier dreams of fighting windmills on steel blades. He dreams of rescuing princesses with shins bloodied from spinning too much. He jumps Salchows from windmill to windmill, and on his last leap he slips and plunges into the Niagara as the TCC bell hammers away at his ears.

Javi wakes up early the next morning.

Pyeongchang is as cold as ever, but the sun is up and the rink awaits and a few notches on the thermometer can hardly faze him now. The scars of two decades of wrestling with the ice metamorphose into undaunted resolve. The world will be watching. Spain will be watching. Today will be the skate of his life — one final battle, one final quest. Tomorrow he is coming home.

He skates after the Pooh hail, giving his best, his pieced together weary self, his everything. On the first touch of music, the thundering leaps outside his chest and into the arena. He breaks the opening pose and prepares for a quad — one of those direly treacherous things, if he fails then it's over — he lands it! _Yes, yes!_ He survives the next jump, and there he is, the old knight heading off to face the world, reliving a lifespan in a song, a decade in four-and-a-half minutes.

And then, the music fades. Dulcinea is gone, the quest is over, the rest of the world comes to life again and the clapping that follows drowns out the crest and fall of his own heartbeat.

His coaches hug him afterward. Like always. Like family.

It feels as if a long, black winter has come to an end.

* * *

Javier is ranked third after the long program. At last, after eight insane years and the nightmare that was Sochi he gets his own spot on the podium. Yet success is bittersweet; this was his last Olympic free skate and that failure of a jump came back to haunt him.

(Apparently, it's not the Olympics if he doesn't pop a Salchow. This better not be a permanent fixture of his dreams from now on.)

Yuzuru slips twice but cements his win by sheer force of will and cries enough for all the podiums combined. They hug almost desperately when Javi comes in from the _Kiss and Cry,_ and right before the victory ceremony they hug and Yuzu cries again.

"This is my last Olympics. It was an honor to compete with you," Javi says, over the most ironically sentimental house music. _Thank you and goodbye. And yes, you can do it without me, Yuzu. You always have and you always will._

Javi draws Shoma in and lets Yuzu lean into his shoulder like a doting older brother, and there they stand, arms around the champion because _they won this together_. Then Yuzu clings harder as cameras go wild, and between his training mate's complete breakdown and Shoma's bewildered face, Javi can only grip them both as tight as he can, wishing them all the best for the future and trying his best to convey all the gratitude, solidarity, and support one could pack into a single farewell embrace.

This is, in essence, their toast to the last quad. Every regret fades to background noise until it's just them hanging on to each other for dear life. There is too much happiness, too much going on and it's overwhelming.

They part when the announcer's voice beckons them one by one to center stage. Javi is the first to go, the first to take his place before the reveling crowd. Streaks of red and yellow rise from the seats in exaltation as notes from the homeland blast through the speakers. This is it — his impossible dream, their shared triumph. Spain's victory as much as Japan's. Even the striped stuffed toys look happy.

There's something different about this Olympics, and it's more than the promise of bronze glinting off his chest. It will not be gold, not this time. Not even silver. He accepts this like the truth behind eclipses and how blue flames are the most deadly. All that matters is that they made it. Javier reached his unreachable star and Yuzuru is now a galaxy of his own. Today's victory has secured the Japanese champion's permanence in figure skating's hall of fame. Generations will hail him for his performances, his records, his brilliance and bravery. The one born with wings, the shooting star that lit the world and never burned up. He reminds Javi of military jets, flying into the storm at full speed and crushing it with the twist of a finger.

Yet once upon a time he was just a teenage boy with an overbite and an unstable Salchow, and Javi sees traces of that still in the man who leaps onto the podium with a broken ankle. If only there was a way to stop the minutes, the little trickling things called seconds — to go back, and do it all over again. Back to their first shared podium, long before their face-off for world titles, when things were simpler and fans less obsessed and Yuzuru's genius had yet to transcend the sport itself. Back to Sochi, when all Javi dreamed of was sharing the greatest stage of all with his training mate. Back to their first competition, their first handshake, their first combined stroking session under TCC's roof.

Javi knows his light is fading. Sports are a fickle thing; people move on and people forget. But he will have this to remember for the rest of his life: Brian and Tracy leaning in when his score was announced, the warmth of the squadron of Pooh bears raining down like little suns. He will have this to keep, for all the times they doubted his sanity, for all the times they questioned Spanish blood on ice. For all the falls, the spin fails, the stumbles in the step sequences he fought through just to make it here. His disappointment at Jaca, the stirrings of depression heightened after being handpicked by Morozov at the summer camp in Andorra, the stopover at Moscow where he first had visions of a skating fairy, the anxiety of the first year in their coaching arrangement, and then, that blessed spring and summer at Moscow with Haru before jettisoning back to Hackensack, all at his own expense. The move to Russia, the stress of shifting training locations, the cruel streak in his coach, the financial strain he felt in his belly, all of the horrors and discouragement in between.

Now look where he is. The crowd is ecstatic in a way he's only ever witnessed in a live soccer match. Everywhere he looks there's a Spanish flag popping up, more than he can count and way more than he's ever seen at a Winter Olympics. It's a sight to behold: Gangneung arena transformed into a glorious sea of daffodils and red carnations and scarlet suns in the light of dawn, and it's beautiful, so, so beautiful.

When he has Soohoorang tucked safely in his arms, his mind drifts.

The plushie. Origin really wanted a plushie.

_"I'll get a medal this time. Just wait and see."_

_"Medal is heavy?"_

_"You decide when I hang it on your neck."_

_"Eh…I don't need. Can you give squishy animal? I like it."_

_"You mean the Olympic mascot?"_

_"Yes, much better than medal."_

_"I can get you lots of those."_

_"If my brother win, he have stuff yellow bear. I want too. Javier also win, so I have special toy?"_

Amid the roars, the camera shutters, the tears of joy awaiting their cue to spill out the creases of his eyes, he smiles like a fool when he receives this most precious treasure.

_Here's the Soohorang you wanted, Yuushuu. I finally got it for you._

He cradles his prize with utmost care and schools his expression into something slightly more dignified. The last thing he needs is video evidence of him screaming _I won a plushie! I won a plushieeeeeee_ for his great-grandchildren to torment him about.

It barely registers when Yuzu beckons him and Shoma to the center. A few steps that feel like floating on a sun-caressed summit and the three of them have their arms wrapped around each other once more, posing for the photo of a lifetime.

And possibly, his very last chance.

Should he or should he not?

Ah, who cares? He's an Olympic bronze medalist now. Two-time world champion, European champion half a dozen times. And they can all label him whatever they want, but he is first and foremost, Javier Fernandez, and if there's one thing he knows, it's how to have fun.

He tickles Yuzu.

_Because yes, there may be room for only one sun in the sky, and yes, there may be only one North Star…_

Yuzu giggles, radiant in the brilliance of a thousand lights.

_…but there's the moon and the clouds and stardust, and to be one of them is more than enough._

He holds his breath, taking it all in — the cooing, the cheering, the wild rush thrilling his heart. He hugs Yuzu and every trace of bad blood between them fades away; there is only a mountain of respect, and even without real friendship, that's enough for him right now.

At last comes the medal. His first, Spain's first— bronze and beautiful from its imperfect shine to the bamboo scars on its face that mirror the ones carved into his skin like mementos from battle-driven years. In the nation's eyes, an unprecedented triumph; in his own, the world's greatest treasure, his life and dreams crystalized into one solid metal disk to hold to his chest on his flight back home.

Congratulations bombard his mentions all night. There is one in particular that he hopes for, but he doesn't have the energy for the hours of scrolling needed to find it, if it even exists.

_I won, Yuushuu. Where are you?_

_Soohorang is waiting for you._

He falls into the mattress with the lightness of a rollercoaster in freefall. Soon this adrenaline high is going to crash, soon he'll have to navigate the real world, the one outside the bubble of figure skating. He wants to settle down and be a coach someday, wants to build up skating in Spain, wants to do all he can to never let a child have to suffer the way he did, wants to travel the world, and meet up with Origin, and Haru, and maybe hang out with Yuzu outside the rink, and buy a vineyard, and be an astronaut, and…

He yawns loudly into the light years of space. He has many, many dreams and a whole lifetime to start chasing the rest of them. For now he needs his rest.

There's a feathered figurine on the table by his bed. Eyes half-open, he swings his arm over and sets it beside the grinning white tiger mascot and the medal that reminds him of lush bamboo forests, so it won't be alone anymore.


	41. VII

[Origin]

Grief is a silent thunderstorm; lightning rips the sky in pieces and wind tears through the earth but the mass of dark clouds is too big to find the source, and no one can _hear._ Grief is a bird. Grief is a plant. It's a hole shaped like a brother, small enough to carry everywhere and big enough to stretch from the tips of one's hair to one's toes. It's a song with no words but so many melodies snagging at each other like a lattice, impossible to escape, impossible to forget.

It's here now, inside, the crunch of wild boulders thumping in circles around his heart, loud and furious, slamming relentlessly into the walls of the cage it was never invited into. It paces, restless, crashing into all of him, lightning, earthquakes, the sea. He orders it to leave but he is not its master, so it disobeys.

 _Hello,_ he says to the old tree, as numbness flares to his fingertips. _How are you?_

And to the wasps curling their amber-striped abdomens, and the rosy spider, and the blue bees, and the fat green chrysalis stuck to the lime branch. _Hello,_ he says, _hello._

He takes a few strides, boots swimming in the dew of thousands of red spider lilies screaming in bloom. The autumn forest grows louder by the hour; more birds come sweeping in from the far north to feed. _Bring my brother with you,_ he implores as they gossip among themselves. He hopes this year there will be more snow.

The birdsong shifts, less shrieking, more pining. He's tempted to join them. He grasps for his drawstring bag and pulls out nothing.

The _shinobue_ is missing.

Surprise tumbles down his belly, akin to the day after he fell into the fairy-touched river and marveled at the sight of shriveled pieces of feathers peeling off like old scabs. His breath lurches, anxiety skitters down his sides.

He lost his flute.

With a sigh, he resigns himself to searching for the instrument he misplaced. He looks around the camp, he checks the caves, he pays a visit to the shrine and scours the perimeter of the lake. No one has seen it, no one knows. Morning sinks into afternoon and Origin is more perplexed than he's ever been since Javier left because how could he be this careless? He lost a flute like he lost a brother. What is he going to lose next?

He retraces his steps for the dozenth time. A pebble worms its way under his heel, dull friction against his calluses. Thorns scrape against his barely-there feathers when he pushes loops of vines over his shoulder. Their bitter scent clings to his nostrils as he forges through the undulating rock he smoothed into a series of ramps years prior. Flint sparks at first strike, he sets the stones back in the crevice. Wood smoke pours into his throat. Keeping the torch at eye level, he scans every promising nook and cranny in the caves, including the rack for his spare arrows and the chest where he keeps his copy of the samurai code. It's not in the tub boat. It's not anywhere.

He extinguishes the torch and retreats outside, trading gold-hued darkness for the scent of silver birch and maples. He walks for hours and hours until the sky sheds its color and he gives up and takes a detour toward the bamboo thicket to find a suitable shaft for a replacement, pondering how to properly drill the holes without a guide to measure the distance between them—

_Toot. Toooooooot._

—only to find a fairy on the way, surrounded by birds roosting in the not quite green foliage, puffing on said missing flute.

Long nails claw across his scalp. He just wasted a whole day for nothing.

"You stole that."

 _Puff. Puff._ "I borrowed it." _Puff puff puff._

"Without telling me."

"Yup! Sorry, Ori," Haru singsongs playfully.

Origin suppresses a growl. Fairies are tricksters. Fairies are monsters. Fairies are evil. Fairies are—

Haru tosses the _shinobue_ into the air.

"Hey, be careful with that!" Origin snaps as Haru juggles the length of bamboo. Once upon a time, his flute could tolerate all that abuse, but it _broke_ and he spent _all day_ searching for it and so many hours painstakingly repairing it and now the fairy has no more regard for it than a pair of chopsticks!

"Don't worry," Haru assures him with a mysterious smile that makes him seem older than the seventeen or eighteen years he appears to be. "I broke too many things already. I'm not breaking this one."

Haru blows a final time and sets the flute on his lap.

"I was thinking," he says, gauging Origin's expression before pressing on, "I can't be the best skater since that title belongs to your brother. But maybe I can be the best musician!"

Origin eyes him suspiciously. "You want me to teach you."

"Hmmm…" Haru peers down the inside of the shaft. Whatever on earth he's looking for, he can't seem to find it, and absently flicks it against his palm. "Ori, do you have another instrument? This one doesn't suit me."

Origin very _patiently,_ very _gently,_ very _kindly_ snatches the poor flute from Haru's grip. No visible cracks. Good.

"There's a _kokyu_ at the shrine," he mutters, meeting Haru's expectant gaze with a frown.

Haru grins excitedly. "I won't break it, I promise."

"Do you know how to play the _kokyu?"_

"No."

"Do you like its sound?"

"Maybe."

"Do you even know what it looks like?"

Haru smiles, sweet and innocent. And then, "Nope."

Origin lets out a despairing breath. Sometimes talking to Haru feels like dealing with a child, and it's been so long since he's last seen one. He grimaces, undecided whether to be amused or irritated by the antics of the spring fairy.

"Please," Haru pleads, and Origin heads to the shrine at a quickened pace, ignoring the mild rumble of his abdomen, leaving his companion to saunter behind.

Origin tries teaching him and Haru tries learning, but for all their efforts, musical instruments and magical creatures might not be compatible after all. The moon rises and dinner is forgotten as the two of them sit cross-legged in the torchlight, both groaning in near exasperation.

"Must you always be the best at everything?" Origin growls at the spring fairy. It's late and he didn't even have lunch and Haru stubbornly refuses to quit until he can play the tune _perfectly,_ never mind the fact that it took Origin a whole month to learn a much simpler melody when he first started.

He hopes there are scraps of quail meat left in the kitchen.

"No, I just have to be the best at _something,"_ Haru answers, grinning. "I don't have enough time to master _everything."_

Origin blinks. Time molts its foggy layers and the person in front him is a visage of Otoñal, undaunted still and incomparably persistent when faced with a goal to achieve. The years have taught Origin to take what he can and settle for less. _But,_ he reminds himself, _Haru didn't have that._

"Still," he says, noting how Haru's face looks younger in the glow and shadow of candlelight, "it's your first time. Is it not enough just to be able to play?"

Silence tightens around them for a moment. The shades of darkness pounce at each other again.

" _Enough?_ " Haru muses. A shadow slashes down his nose, splitting his face in half. Another leaps and cleaves his left ear from the rest of his face and draws shutters across his chin before taking flight. "Hey, Ori, have you ever wondered what would have happened if you were _the best—_ if you won that day, and you were the one chosen? Your twin would be stuck here instead. You'd be Olympic champion."

He scoffs. The thought did occur to him. For _years._ All these arrows and he could not fight for his brother, all the water of the medicinal river nearby and he could not save this mother, all the ritual dances offered to the heavens and he could not stop the avalanche from consuming his village, all his training and it was not enough.

He's made it to that point halfway between finding answers and wanting to bury the matter completely and never have to think about it again. There are far better memories to fill his mind with. Like when they were four and followed a lady dancer to the frozen lake. Or that day he asked his twin why he loved skating so much and he said the ice looked so lonely in its pristine blankness. Or that injured bird Otoñal saved and nursed back to health.

"I'm not as good as he is," Origin admits, quietly, truthfully, getting up to lean against the open door. He stares at the pale luminescence poking at his arm and beckons it to his fingers. There is no warmth in this light.

Haru yanks on his hair, reminding him why exactly he stopped wearing braids two years ago. Fairy hands seem to have an affinity for long hair plated into ropes— or maybe this fairy is half-mad, like he is.

"But you _could_ have been," Haru insists, "with the same coach and the same training mates, you could have—"

"No."

"If you learned how to do quads—"

"I would not make the same choices." His glare is hard when he cuts Haru off. The pangs of hunger come back in full force.

Haru positions his fingers on the slender-necked instrument and the friction of the bow makes an ear-splitting whine worse than cats giving birth and sends the crickets into a bluster of furious complaints. "Are you sure it's not broken? Maybe the earthquake—"

"It's not. You're holding it the wrong way," Origin explains, demonstrating the proper grip of the bow. "Let me show you." He takes the _kokyu_ from Haru, concentrating on the cool feel of wood resting against his palm. The familiar haunting strain pours forth, and though worn out with age, the strings are perfectly in tune.

The very first time he attempted this, the screech was nothing short of horrible, and it was only Otoñal's encouragement that kept him going.

 _Remember the butterflies?_ His brother would admonish, alluding to their mother's lesson about the secret magic of the flutter-winged. _Remember how something so ugly turned into something beautiful?_

He pauses, reeling himself back from the riptide of memories, and passes the instrument to Haru. The fairy tries again. The squealing rats come back.

Origin's stomach rumbles.

"Artistry is built on the foundation of good technique. I know. I told your brother that," Haru sighs, finally, _finally_ looking ready to give up and let Origin dine in peace.

"It seems the _kokyu_ is not meant for you," Origin comments, gently wiping traces of dust from the instrument before setting it down in a slender wooden barrel.

"Maybe I'll try swimming?" Haru suggests, so suddenly that Origin almost whirls around and asks if he's lost his mind at last. His brow lifts in amusement. There is no way this whimsical creature could ever be connected to the malevolent youkai said to have cursed him and destroyed his village.

"I'll be the… fastest… swimmer… in Japan?"

His eyebrow soars.

"There are swimming races too. I could go to the Olympics."

Origin's eyebrow is arched as high as a mountain peak now.

"If not…"

"If not?"

"I'll master archery instead! You'll be my teacher!"

Somewhere in his soul, Origin groans.

* * *

A thick, rustling carpet of reds and yellows shivers over the earth when he sends another message to Javier. He is helpless at deciphering the thin glowing slab Haru waves around, so he dictates and Haru presses tiny characters on the screen, and drags around the tiny pictures, and promises that Javier will receive it.

"What happens now?"

"I'm returning this phone," Haru informs him.

"Will you write to him too?"

"No."

"Why?"

The only reply he gets is an indecisive hum.

"Haru?"

Hooded eyes glance at the tiny picture of a man carrying a red and yellow flag in the artificially brightened screen. "He doesn't remember me."

That doesn't make sense. "Javier wasn't drugged and sacrificed to the sea. Why would he forget you?"

"Because…" the smoothness of his voice falters as Haru seems to grapple for words, "he thought I was your brother. He called me Yuzu!"

"Because you look almost exactly alike," Origin states flatly.

"What will I tell him? Should I say we're cousins? Or _triplets?_ Will I be another missing brother?"

"The truth. You are a fairy that looks like me."

Haru shakes his head. "If only you knew," his voice shudders.

 _Knew what?_ The question singes the tip of his tongue but Haru evades it.

"What will you do when you see your twin again? Bring him here? Stay with him in Canada? Will you move to Sendai if he asks you to?"

No, he thinks. He has been thinking. He never thought this through.

"What if his memory never returns? What will you do?" Haru's questions are almost desperate now.

And then the revelation hits him, followed by the sting of annoyance that it took him this long to connect the dots. "You want to meet Javier again. But you're _scared."_

He realizes just how right he is when Haru stares in perfect silence, no rebuttals, no protests. And then, Haru smiles.

"I'm like you," he confesses, slumping down on the moonlit sand in defeat. "I'm a little stuck in the past too," he sighs, a tiny and sad thing lost in the dance of furious gusts and hissing waves.

He feels a little sympathy blooming in his heart for the poor fairy. And then Haru tells him things, and he finds sympathy not for a fairy, but for a poor lost boy cheated by the wiles of time, as bereaved as himself.

"Someday I'll run out of power," Haru reveals. He's not a fairy, he says, but he's not entirely human. That can't be so, because if he isn't human, and he isn't a fairy, then what is he?

"I'm a human soul trapped in a fake body," Haru confesses, and Origin tries his best to understand. "Someday this body will stop working."

"You'll lose all your magic?"

"Something like that."

"And then what happens?"

"I'll be gone."

Origin's teeth clench in a familiar way. Some things are always going to hurt.

Like he told Javier, everyone leaves eventually. Once again, he will be alone.

"How much time do you have left?"

"A few years, maybe a decade. I can't tell."

"Aren't there others like you? Will they…" he panders for the right word, "…disappear too?"

"Remember when the earthquake caused an avalanche that buried your village?"

He nods. How could he forget? His legs burning and frenzied screams and trees crashing and the world falling apart and being forced to watch helplessly as everything was swept up in that thunderous roar; someone pushing him away, saving him, and dying, and the numbness of an icicle shoved into the hollow of his chest and how ugly everything looked afterward and—

"The earthquake triggered a tsunami in the east. Your brother was a survivor too."

Why are they discussing this now? His lungs swirl with sludge. He has birds to shoot down.

"Tohoku was devastated. Fukushima's reactor suffered a meltdown. The power source destroyed every humanoid connected to it. All the other nuclear cores were immediately shut down, and with no energy stream to maintain the rest of the prototypes, those that survived the overload or remained unfinished were permanently decommissioned. I survived because I had been cut off already."

"The magic destroyed them?"

"The burst of energy was too strong. It wiped them out."

"How did you wake up, if you had no more magic left?"

"They opened up a few power plants two years ago. Much was altered to comply with new regulations, and I was able to draw from the energy channeled nearby."

"You got your magic back," Origin deduces, arms crossed, no feathers to hide them.

Haru shakes his head again. "I woke up."

* * *

A splash reverberates against the fanged walls of the crystalline chamber, too loud in this season-driven muteness. Even surrounded by the unnatural heat of the cavern, the stream is blistering cold. His teeth chatter when he breaks the surface, chilled to the bones and choking in guilt that the healing waters cannot wash off.

 _Not good enough_ , Haru said.

Haru doesn't understand.

His foot slips, knocking his shin and ripping a scratch across his ankle. He curses. Nails dig into his palms like the claws he doesn't have. He dries the water off his back with a thick cloth. The remnants of his feathers are too stunted to flutter.

The smell of blood is in the air. His foot starts to hurt. He ignores it.

There is a greater pain, the sinking of teeth in his lungs, boiling water swishing in his guts, acid below his tongue, as if someone crammed a ten-foot python the girth of his calf down his throat and let it spew venom everywhere.

Why, on that night Javier left, did he not follow?

And why, whenever Haru would cross over to the main island, would he refuse every offer to come along?

Why won't he leave this place?

Because of the last words Otoñal told him, _you have to pass it on, you have to teach someone, continue the legacy._ The elders often spoke of preserving life and its intricacies for generations to come, and his brother took to those teachings like a cygnet to open water. That's who Otoñal was, ever sacrificing, always looking out for everyone. But they didn't count on this happening, didn't plan for what would be done in the event that there was no one left.

So why did he stay?

Because he found a medicine that worked, and for the first time he had a chance to become normal and didn't want to throw it away.

Because, as much as he missed his brother, he didn't want to see his brother. A brother who does not know him, a brother who is someone else, how could he face that? He wants to see _his brother,_ not Yuzuru Hanyu, not whatever the world beyond the ocean changed him into. He wants the boy who was taken away at fourteen, he wants him and only him, not this person who looks and talks and laughs the same way but is an imposter. Let him stay that way forever; better they not meet lest an encounter should erase that.

Because, like he accused Haru of earlier, he's _terrified._

What if he remembers?

What if he doesn't?

The questions swing back and forth, back and forth in his head. Droplets slide down the charcoal waterfalls of his hair, licking at his spine like leeches. He smooths his fingers over his forearms. Feathers have faded into uneven bumps on his skin, the outlines remain etched into the layers of flesh like discolored tattoo marks, along with a few scars from younger years when he tried to gouge them out. Maybe they'll never really go away.

He dips himself into the water again, and when he rises, he burns.

* * *

 _Chink-ding-clang_ , methodical hammering steals the stillness of the early wintery morning, forcing Origin to plug up his ears with his fingers to get more precious sleep which has been eluding him this week.

He fails. The noise does not relent until the exact moment he steps out of the hut. And then, when all the sleepiness has rubbed out of his bleary eyes, it's over.

"Fixed it, boys! But we'll be needing supplies soon. Heaven knows we deserve better junk to cook with," announces Blackhead. He tosses the repaired metal pot at Origin, rickety handle and all.

He catches it just in time.

The older man gives him a thumbs-up.

He yawns.

"Hey, come with me," Blackhead says now, and Origin follows. He knows where they're going: to the crash site of the fighter plane where Blackhead keeps trying to teach him how to tinker with machines and he keeps breaking things or attaching parts the wrong way. It's Otoñal who's good at this stuff; the only expertise Origin can claim is crafting spears and arrows.

The tip of a wing blurs into view and he fades into his head. In the early days of sorrow, when the memory was fresh and freely tearing through his mind, Blackhead carved him something out of the timber wreckage lying scattered at the base of the mountains, half-buried under snow. It had wings and a tail but no feathers.

 _"This,"_ he said, _"is an airplane."_

"You're lucky I found you that day," Blackhead reminds him as they near the hunk of metal. "After my parents died in the 1985 crash, I was a mess. Ditched school, served jailtime, got a young wife and left her, those things. I might have a kid somewhere. My grandma, bless her soul, said plane crashes were a family curse. Both my dad and grandfather were eldest sons, you see. Uncle wanted to find where grandpa wrecked his Soviet Yak-3 and got hooked on the crazy notion of swan fairies. And I needed to get away. So I packed my stuff, flew here, learned a few things— turns out what saved him was the mineral springs, not some stupid folktales. Found you crying like a baby beside a felled log, and here we are. It's been so long; hope you haven't gotten tired of this old face."

"I haven't," Origin tells him. He breathes in the taste of salt and pines. He has so much more to say, but what comes out is _thank you._

"No need to thank me, boy. This place was good to me."

_Was?_

"What—"

"Boss is mad. The deal failed and if this keeps up…" He musses his white-gold hair, frustrated. Something's wrong.

"What happened to the negotiations?"

"Lots of things. Big Pharma. Customs. Infighting. Everyone wants a chunk of gold and those revolutionaries are the worst. 'Guns are expensive,' they keep whining, and how are we supposed to make a profit if we have to babysit a bunch of misguided fools fighting for a parcel of land?"

"Are you leaving?"

His mentor through the years tugs his cap on harshly. "I'm _retiring,_ that's what."

Origin doesn't know how to feel about that. When Blackhead is gone he will only have Haru and when Haru is gone, he will have no one.

"Leave," the man says at last, mouth grim. "Or come with me. Insurgents will swarm the area soon. This wretched forest is no place for you."

Origin retreats to the caves to ponder the new developments. He could hide in the mountains as usual, but if more guerilla fighters join the ranks of those camping at the outskirts of the forest, he could find himself in trouble. Worse, there might be actual fighting and he'll be forced to pick sides to survive.

This isn't supposed to happen.

Haru promised to take him to Korea to watch the Olympics, but February is in full swing and Haru is still sound asleep. And now the closest thing he has to a father is saying goodbye.

He grabs a piece of flint and hurls it at the far end of the cave. It slams into the wall, breaks upon impact and plops into the water. Beside him, the fairy-not-fairy slumbers.

And then he returns to his last ties to this place— what's left of his home, what's left of the shrine. And his eyes tear up and his throat fills with ashes and the popping of cinders screams at his ear. The hills glow red and orange and a thick, suffocating darkness billows upward and his heart stops and everything is on fire.

* * *

He waits barefoot by the docks, staring down a thousand miles of wind and ocean. The stars are gone now. There are people gathering around.

Someone asks who he is. Someone asks where he's going.

"Yuushuu," he tells them. "Call me Yuushuu."


	42. VIII

[Javi]

 _It should have been silver_ , he mumbles to Soohorang the morning after. The mascot smiles, uncaring.

He gazes reverently at the metal disk on his lap.

Bronze is okay.

Bronze is good.

Finally getting the medal that eluded him in Sochi makes him weep because at last here it is, his unreachable star in the palm of his hand, all the more brilliant because of the long and winding road to get there. Bronze, to wipe out the unignored ache of Yuzu getting a champion's homecoming parade and him going home with a scandal at his heels.

 _Time heals all wounds_ , the saying goes, and that should explain his secret fondness for this particular shade of reddish-brown, but Javi knows better. You lose braincells. Then you lose more braincells. And then you forget what caused you pain in the first place.

Or the braincells rearrange themselves. Either way, the voice in his head has somehow changed from _"Hey, I know you've got a million fans and the whole skating world thinking the universe revolves around you, but it doesn't; you could jump seven quads in the free or land a quad Axel and I couldn't care less,"_ to _"Hey Yuzu, wanna help me practice kendama? I can't get the hang of this yoyo cup and ball!"_

Somehow the misery of that popped Salchow four years ago dissipates with a final sigh of content, putting to rest the lingering traces of Morozov and leaving a vacant space in his heart for him to fill with something kinder, like peace, trust, gratitude, relief. The broken and hollow parts of him slowly lift and fall into place with a lightness so beautiful it feels like flying.

 _I could die tomorrow_ , he thinks, _and die happy._

But there is one more thing to settle.

The next item on his agenda is to have a good, long talk with Yuzu. He dislikes everything connected to Yuzu, from the thousand cameramen lined up like knights in flickering armor to the fans who accuse Javi of using him for self-promotion— but he doesn't dislike Yuzu per se. _Like when you have a spouse,_ he blurted out once, fumbling for words to describe their unusual training relationship, and he really would like to know whether they _might have been_ friends if he tried a little harder, if they _might actually be_ friends without realizing it, or if they're just characters in a story meant to meet and battle it out and drift apart because their chapter is over.

For him, the greatest victory was to face Yuzu and conquer that summit together. It is their story— Javi's journey, and Yuzu's journey, and _Javi and Yuzu's_ , tempered by time and ice and the cycle of victories and failures, and he wants that part to be okay too.

It would be good to settle this once and for all before he leaves Cricket Club forever. He owes Yuzu an apology— in fact, they both owe each other an apology— or perhaps not. Hugging it out for no less than five minutes and that whimpered _I can't do it without you_ did wonders for ripping out the iron fence they erected between them, and despite the thousand-strong crowd tuned in to Yuzu's ugly sobbing, it felt… nice not to have to squeeze through the gaps for once.

Maybe all they really needed was to _talk._

* * *

The week crashes over in a hectic whirlwind of presscons and interviews and Javi can only hope he saying the right things because his mind is soaring across the Strait of Gibraltar the whole time.

He is going home. He cannot believe this. He is going _home._

A reporter asks to see his medal. He flashes a smile and holds it to the camera.

_Ma, Pa, this is for you._

He flies back to Spain. He sets appointments everywhere and meets everyone and hey, suddenly a Spanish Winter Olympic figure skating medalist exists. At last his countrymen acknowledge that skating is a sport and that he is not, in fact, an utter fool for leaving home to chase his dream.

 _What do you want to talk about?_ they ask him before the camera firing squad prepares to shoot him down.

 _Skating,_ he answers simply, and they take the bait.

What he wants to tell the viewers is how not to be himself. How being heroic doesn't have to mean getting PTSD, or breaking yourself into a million pieces just to survive. How to stay warm when every drop in the thermometer sucks life out of you. How to cook your Mom's best recipe when she isn't around to keep it from turning into a disaster. How important a door can be when you need a safe place to hide from the rest of the world.

Instead, they talk about his medal and they talk about his coaches and they talk about Yuzu and he swallows all he originally intended to say and files it for later. They ask about Yuzu more, then they ask more about Yuzu, and they ask about the hype surrounding Yuzu, and the feeling of beating and losing to Yuzu, and what it's like to breathe the same air as Yuzu, and Javi barely stops himself from rolling his eyes.

When you have a dream you do crazy things. Only those who have dreamed understand this.

At last someone remembers to inquire about his future plans. He gives a vague idea of what he'll do. He's still figuring it out; the past week has seen threads warp and tangle in new directions, Spain calling him back and TCC quickly shifting away from the center of his universe.

He tells them about new, faraway dreams.

* * *

The feeling of sheer elation takes a while to sink in. Tonight he wants to wrap himself in a sheet of paper and crumple into an origami rose and just lie there in the center, and not move.

He scrolls for ages through a barrage of unread notifications, until a text from his therapist catches his eye.

_Great fight! You faced your demons and won. I'm so proud of you._

He replies immediately, thanking her for all her help over the past few months. Scheduled therapy sessions have been postponed for the sake of the Olympics, but with so many things swimming in his mind right now, he feels a sudden urge to pay her a visit and hug her to death.

 _It's only the start,_ she had warned him prior to his flight to Korea. _Acceptance can take years. You need to give yourself time to heal. But you've come so far. Be proud of this._

He makes a mental note to send her a gift of peach tarts within the week.

There's no one to celebrate with right now, so he sways around the table in the silence of the night, jamming to a medley of slow rock ballads. Somehow that leads to him watching the final episode of a telenovela he never cared for before, with characters whose names he doesn't even know, simply because he misses hearing his native tongue. This plot is ages old: friends turned love rivals competing for their beloved's attention. He snorts. For goodness' sake, someone hire a new scriptwriter and make a show where the rivals become friends.

That, he decides, would be way more interesting.

And so it comes to pass that at the strike of midnight, with an analog clock as his witness, Javier Fernandez acknowledges a truth that has pained him for so long but was always too sneaky for him to realize: _he is tired of saying goodbye._

It is midnight, he is staring at a clock, and it occurs to him that if he twists the spring just a little, it won't be midnight anymore. If he could rewind time and redo their working relationship from the start, then he and Yuzu wouldn't be staring across a rift as big as the Grand Canyon.

But he can't. He can only begin wherever they're at now, hoping the cornerstone is still there, buried somewhere not too deep beneath the surface for Javi to find.

If you can resurrect a rink, you can resurrect a friendship.

He rereads the message he composed on his phone and hits send.

He waits.

And waits.

And then, because he is tired of goodbyes but also too tired to say hello, he puts the phone down on the nightstand and dives for the serenity of the covers. Dreamless sleep, once a rarity, lets him bask in its presence now. It's as if his body decided he finished what he came for, and it would be pointless to taunt him with night terrors anymore.

He checks his notifications the moment he wakes up. There's a whole deluge to sift through, but he finds what he's looking for at last.

 _Hi,_ it says, a million words.

Javi reciprocates in kind. The chatbox comes to life with a platoon of emoticons, and the Olympic champion becomes a boy once more.

* * *

He sees black feathers again when Kaetlyn Osmond makes it to the podium. Black and silver. Not close enough.

He searches for Origin's amber streaks on his TV screen. He finds nothing and no one, just another clip of Yuzu looking like he danced on the stars last night.

 _Yuzuru's happiness is contagious,_ Laura comments.

She's right. The pure joy on his face could fill a planet. _Planet Hanyu— population: one,_ said a commentator. Everyone else would be burned to ashes by his light.

And Javi is mortal, plain and simple. So he watches from the comfort of his old couch and thinks of the black swan, that other anomaly that has become an indelible part of his life.

Then he's back in Korea, arguing with the voice in the back of his head telling him he should have known better.

Soon the summits of Pyeongchang will fade into a mere glowing spark in time, and he has to salvage what he can before the opportunity slips from his grasp. He has said too many farewells already, he has let people let go and left them behind, and he never wrestled with the passing years to keep their memory from corroding to silhouettes in his consciousness.

Today changes that.

Today he will take that first step, he will reach out to Yuzu and they will talk, and the press and the fans and the entire figure skating community and whoever invented the English language can go jump off a cliff if they dare misconstrue his intentions again.

As of now, they are regrettably barely more than friendly strangers, two worlds and too different, they are rinkmates and rivals, and that is all history has ever let them be. Perhaps there was no solid ground to tread on all these years; they've been dancing around each other the way they dance around the rink and Javi has spent far too long being absolutely sick of that. Beneath the veneer of sparkling camera lenses and commentators' praises, the half-decade used up cutting into each other's ice has amounted to nothing but a botched hit-and-miss and maybe they can only truly reach a beginning when it's finally supposed to be over. Yuzu has done a fine job as a one-man demolition crew of whatever bridges they once had, or at least _thought_ they had, but Javi hasn't been putting in any real effort to undo the damage, and now that the debris has cleared up it's his turn to step up to the plate with whatever tools he has and finally lay a foundation, firm and enduring and real.

If you want friends, sometimes you have to fight to keep them. Well he's starting right now. This is him, with a five-gallon bucket of superglue, ready to fix things.

If he can't repair the rift, he'll start from the bottom, grab a pack of nails and scrap wood and build. And if it falls, if it fails, if it all collapses, he's getting iron bars and a welding machine.

There is no more _I wish_.

Only, _I will_.

He shoots a text message he should have sent years ago and waits, summons his strength, and knocks thrice on the door.

He takes a deep inhale and squares his shoulders. His head is swimming in the fog of effervescent pine needles, courtesy of the antibacterial spray he picked up from the grocery. His heartbeat sinks to his stomach and he clamps it down hard.

The door cracks open slowly, giving Javi a few precious seconds to gather his wits.

A mop of dark hair peeks out. "Hi—"

This is how you befriend the legendary Yuzuru Hanyu.

Hurl a stuffed toy at his face.

"Ow!" Yuzu rubs at his cheek, but his attention is drawn immediately to the bear that has dropped to his feet. He bends in half to pick it up. "Pooh?"

 _I missed you_ , Javi wants to say, but what comes out is "Hey."

"Javi!" Yuzu shout-squeaks in delight.

And then Javi is inside, staring at the world outside the glass caged by the immaculate window frame, gazing at Yuzu's chunk of gold lying reverently on the desk like a fiercely guarded dragon's treasure.

His first thought is: the light here should be too bright for the medal to shine the way it does.

Yuzu pads toward the bed. "Let me see your medal, too." It sounds like an order, not a request, but maybe he's mishearing things. Maybe he's been mishearing Yuzu all this time.

He shrugs a bit guiltily, then pulls out the bamboo-inspired bauble from his pocket. It seems to glow more than usual for some reason. If he squints hard enough it looks almost golden.

Yuzu's cradles it in his palms and inspects it, watching it catch the light from different angles, tracing the Olympic rings with his index finger, reading the etching on the rim and counting the lines streaking across— he must have done this countless times with his own medal, and it warms Javi's heart to see his own trophy treated with such respect. But Yuzu's brows suddenly furrow like something's not quite right and Javi wonders if he accidentally scratched it or let it collect too much dust. Leave it to Yuzu to notice the tiniest of details.

Still, Yuzu holds his tongue and Javi allows his mind to fill in the confusing silence. He'd surely say, _"Javi, you should taking better care of medal!"_

To which Javi would respond, _"I did! It was perfectly safe in my pocket."_

And Yuzu would cluck his tongue and counter with something along the likes of, _"But it could fall out, or it getting stolen by someone!"_

And Javi would laugh and tell him to stop worrying too much.

What he doesn't expect is for Yuzu's expression to relax. "It's very good color," he smiles.

"But not gold," Javi can't help himself from pointing out.

"Not gold. Still beautiful," Yuzu says with an indescribable fondness. "Deserve to be put in museum so everyone can see and Javi forbidden by guards to touch because he get it _dirty,"_ he teases, wiping an imaginary— or is it real— speck of dirt from the edge. And then he grins so deviously that Javi wants to shake him until his teeth chatter because where has _this_ Yuzu been hiding all this time?

"I missed you," Javi says.

Yuzu blinks, surprised. "I'm here."

"I can't believe I really missed you," he repeats, exhaling staccatos while Yuzu assesses him with his poker face on.

Yep, this is _so_ unfair.

Yuzu hands the medal back, letting his eyes linger on it. Javi moves to return it to his pocket but reconsiders and wears it on his neck instead.

Something changes in Yuzu's expression. "I'm sorry. I'm being mean to Javi this season, and last one also. That wasn't… it was… not right."

"I'm sorry too," Javi admits. There is something in his throat that is either the jelly drink he downed in one swallow before coming here or his own nerves.

It's probably the jelly.

Yuzu audibly gulps, and for a moment Javi fears they'll have a repeat of the cry-hugging in the green room all over again.

"Sorry for… for… for not buying you more French Fries," he stutters.

 _Way to go, Javi,_ he mentally slaps his forehead. Is this always the way things will turn out the instant he opens his mouth? Him blurting out stupid things at the spur of the moment because he's avoiding saying even stupider things and altogether sounding really, really, stupid and then walking on eggshells for the next few weeks or months due to the fact that, in retrospect, whatever he said was indeed simply, incomparably, stupid.

The space between Yuzu's eyebrows is in knots again.

"Which French Fries? I never asked Javi buy for me, did I?"

In his head, Javi composes a lament for their dead and buried friendship.

_In 2011, they shook hands at the presscon and Javi thought they could be friends._

"Javi? Did I forget? Did you promised me and I forgot?"

_In 2012, they shared a practice session at Cricket Club and Javi thought they were friends._

"Javi? You hear me?"

_In 2015, Javi won Worlds and Yuzu cheered for him and Javi thought they were the closest of friends._

It's 2018 and Javi doesn't know what to think anymore. And he's supposed to be wiser with age. He highly doubts that notion right now.

Just when he starts contemplating buying ten volumes on the life and proverbs of ancient Chinese sages, something pokes Javi's side. _Poke – let go – poke – let go._ It's Yuzu's finger.

"Shut up. I need something to apologize for and I can't think of a good reason yet," Javi scolds the offending digit, slightly miffed by the whole weird situation he got himself into by not watching his words.

And then, because nothing ever happens the way it should, Yuzu laughs. He laughs as hard as he cried right before they stepped on the podium, which was a lot, so he giggles for the next three minutes or so, leaving Javi seriously concerned that the two-time Olympic champion might suffer an asthma attack on his watch.

"Maybe better if you saying sorry for leaving your gear messy and I have to arrange them all the time."

"Not _all_ the time," Javi protests weakly.

"You sorry you forget to pack pants and you borrow mine. You sorry because you're careless when you shooting trash in garbage bin and I have to pick up it and throw in properly for you."

"Yes but—"

"And not remember to greet Happy Birthday."

"I—"

"And complaining about cold too much."

"I don't—"

"Also forgetting water bottle at rink and I need to rushing after you before you leaving the club."

And he has nothing to say because all Yuzu said is true, except looking back on all those silly incidents, he doesn't feel like apologizing; rather, he wants to thank and thank Yuzu for all the little ways he's been looking out for Javi all this time.

Maybe this is what friendship feels like in Yuzu's terms. Maybe they're not as distant as he thought. Maybe— no, he can't deal with maybes, he has to make sure for once in his life that he and Yuzu are on the same page.

So, over six years later, he starts over.

He takes a deep breath.

"Hi, I'm Javier Fernandez, Olympic bronze medalist, and I would like to be your friend." _This is as awkward as it gets,_ he winces. He grips Yuzu's hand and shakes it, pulling him into a hug before the boy can react. Baby steps, he knows, but it's the best he can do for now.

He waits.

He breathes.

"Silly Javi," Yuzu mumbles at last into his suspiciously wet shoulder, "we always been friends."

"Oh," Javi mutters dazedly, "nice to know that."

He isn't sure if this is the start, or the middle, of a real and proper friendship— clearly he and Yuzu have vastly different perspectives about things— but it's certainly not the end, and they can work with that. His mission today is successful, his faith in what has so long felt like the most fragile of bonds reaffirmed, and though there are so many cracks here and there like a bad rink surface after too many death-defying jumps, ice has a way of mending itself and he trusts that in time they will, too.

"So," he interjects, trying and failing to detach Yuzu from himself so they can continue their talk, "since we're officially friends, is it okay if I kidnap your gold medal and bring it home with me? Cause I don't know about Japan but Spain could really use another winter sports medal, and I would greatly appreciate it if you would be so kind as to—"

Yuzu smacks him on the shoulder.

Javi pouts.

Yuzu smirks.

End of discussion.

* * *

The rich scent of premium roasted beans warms his breath, transforming Yuzu's temporary bedspace into something reminiscent of home as the soundtrack of some newly-released fantasy lore plays in the background. Javi clutches his stomach, fighting to hold in the convulsive laughter threatening his poor, shivering coffee. He sets the mug down and wipes condensed steam off his glasses.

He put this off for too long, so once the conversation starts, it goes on forever. They race each other down the slide of memories, all the way back to the Cup of Russia, feeling centuries old.

Javi nudges his shoulder. "Remember when we first met? That day I saw your first senior program live I thought it was so cool. Your spins were so good and I just knew there was something special about you."

Yuzu flushes. "Javi special too! Good quads."

"Why the music choice, though?"

Yuzu turns thoughtful for a moment. "It liked it. I don't know why but I always like swans," he replies, and Javi understands what Yuzu himself probably doesn't even realize, that it must have triggered something in his unremembered memories, that it felt like home and the picture of home is the last thing that can be pried from anyone's mind. It is always there, and so Yuzu will always be a swan, even when the stories have been forgotten.

Which brings him to the other matter he came to discuss today. But… how to broach this subject… he never really planned this part… this is starting to sound harder than he thought… he'll need an extra dose of tact and more patience…

"Have you ever forgotten stuff in the past?" he spews out.

 _Smooth, Javi. Real smooth_. If he could punch himself in the face right now, he would.

"Like apartment keys?" Yuzu snarks.

"Em, no, I mean, more important things. Like memories… about family, friends, hobbies, places you've been to? Things like that?"

Yuzu's eyes narrow.

"Cause that happened to me," he quickly injects, hiding behind nervous laughter, "I, uh, I went to therapy for it. I was just wondering."

The silence is uncomfortable, so Javi tries to backtrack, but his tongue scrambles into pretzels and what comes out is a very sensible, very profound, "Guh."

_Aaarrggghhh!_

Then, ever so softly, Yuzu whispers. "You noticed?"

"I—" _heard the whole story from your brother_ "—yeah. A little. I'm a bit curious. Have been, actually. For some time."

Yuzu purses his lips.

Javi reaches for his coffee and swallows. It's cold.

He takes a sip.

This was a crazy idea.

This is bad.

"Yuzu?"

Still nothing.

_Bad._

"I remember... there was lots of ice… an old violin… bow and arrow… someone reaching for the sky. I remember wind, and skating, and feeling like I'm flying. I was a swan and there was other swan."

Javi suddenly needs another cup of this stuff. Two more cups. "Who?"

Yuzu points to the where the shadows sink their teeth into the floor. He moves his hand back and forth, lowering it until it converges with the creature stuck to the tiles, leeched of color. "I don't remember."

Javi may not be an amnesiac, but he has some experience with repressed memories. The identity crisis Yuzu suffered must have been terrible. How on earth did he manage, not knowing who he was?

"When I am found, I have bow with me. The word that written there is Otoñal. But I don't know who Otoñal is."

"Maybe it's your name?"

"Maybe," Yuzu shrugs.

 _It's just a name_ , Javi realizes with growing apprehension. It doesn't mean anything to him. There's a handful more fragments that make no sense, but that's it.

Origin is never going to have his brother back.

Javi swallows a prayer of thanks that he never had such a complicated sibling relationship.

"It must have been tough for you," he remarks, mouth dry.

Yuzu's gaze sweeps downward for the briefest moment. "Not very. Mom and Dad and Saya always being so good to me. School is hardest part."

Javi rubs his growing beard. More than anything else, this must be the explanation for Yuzu's strange, secluded lifestyle. If his first introduction to society was at fourteen, he had to play a lot of catching up at school. He must have studied every minute he got. All the times he teased Yuzu for having no social life parade at shutterspeed before his eyes, and he feels so, so guilty.

"You really don't remember anything else?"

"Someone play beautiful flute."

"And?" he urges, still holding on to that vain hope that prodding Yuzu might bring back something. Anything. His brother.

He shakes his head. "It's blank, Javi. All the memories should be there is gone. I try very hard and I keep trying, especially when I am on ice and do skating, and I even— even ask doctor's help, but," one look and Javi's hope drops, "I remember nothing."

Some call heartbreak the deft twist of a dagger in the vital organs, but it's not. It's a lava-coated needle missiling into your flesh, three hundred sixty-five times over, and over, and over, because a dagger flashes into existence and lets the pain end when it ends you while a needle embeds itself so craftily that you eventually give up trying to wrench it out. Javi knows this from experience. But he has never suffered from this particular brand of heartbreak, and never at this intensity. And Yuzu has never wanted anyone's pity, so he never breathed a word.

Javi's eyes fall shut with a shudder.

"All I know is after beach there someone help me. He looking the same as me. And wearing pink like cherry blossoms. He give me Pooh and then he's gone."

 _Haru,_ Javi realizes. _They met. He's real._

And, quite possibly, the reason behind Yuzu's fascination with stuffed bears.

Which means it was Javi's fault all along.

He coughs into his fist.

Yuzu manages a brittle smile. "I miss the ice so much, and I learn that I can skating very well, so I join competitions and win. It's not so bad, me not able to remember. Skating very fun. I enjoy very much."

He should look sadder. If he were in Yuzu's place, he'd be in tears now, but he isn't.

Somehow that makes it worse. It means he had to be strong and accept that he would never know the truths about himself, and find a way to move on. Once again, Javi can only shake his head in awe of the strength of this young man sitting before him, nursing more than just a career-threatening injury, bearing more than just the burden of a nation's expectations. Not many can live with such loss and still press forward.

"I remember what I can. I won't look beyond more than that. I have survive an earthquake, Javi. I'm still alive today, so I need to… to focus on what I have, like skating. And friends in skating. Like you."

Still, it bothers Javi that he was in the dark all this time. He wonders if anyone in TCC was aware of this.

"Does Brian know? Or Tracy? Ghislain?"

"Coach Tracy know a little. She don't ask. I just tell her."

"What did she say?"

"That she loves me like also her children."

"Hey, I hope you know that you're like family to me, too," Javi assures him, sounding terribly sentimental, like those terrible telenovelas Laura forced him to watch. "I think of you like my own brother, even if I hate you most of the time."

Now that is probably the sappiest thing ever. They could put this on Netflix.

"You don't hate me," Yuzu sneers. "Javi love me because you always need someone to asking him for extra tissue."

Well, that too.

"And to borrowing pants," he snickers. He sits up and takes their cups to the sink, and Javi listens as the faucet pours forth something that sounds like rain. It gushes down, tainted with hues of soap and coffee, swirling with a bubbling hiss before disappearing into the yawning hollowness of the drain.

* * *

Gala practice is filled with light-hearted shennanigans that make Javi feel eight years younger. He can still hear the theme from Vancouver when he closes his eyes. They make a human train. His training mate grabs onto his pants and pulls hard. Jun Hwan spins.

The ice swallows Yuzuru again.

Javi watches the figure clad in raindrops and feathers carve hydroblade paths around the rink. Here a spread eagle, there an Ina Bauer, every move a brushstroke in ethereal calligraphy the world may never fully comprehend.

He looks and sees a white desert with a comet in the center. Yuzuru Hanyu, breaker of world records, the pride of Japan, now a two-time Olympic Gold Medalist, bopping his head to an unheard beat while engraving some sort of musical notation with each turn of his obsidian blades.

Javi takes a step backward. It's time to leave, he knows. He looks at the gaps, at the faces he does not see. Mao is gone, Yuna is gone, none of Yuzuru's former podium mates are anywhere near the top. Patrick is retiring; a generation of quad specialists is on the rise. They are young and bursting with energy and he is counting hours now.

He scrapes ice off his blade and rubs it in between his fingers. At his first Olympics, he had this crazy, crazy thought that he could take some of this fairy-like stuff back home as a souvenir.

This time he flings it back, melting droplets and all.

He bears no delusions. This is Olympic ice, and Olympic ice has always loved Yuzuru Hanyu.

He walks away from the rink. His footsteps echo, too loud and too soft, until he is once again lost in the giant world outside, bigger the venue, bigger than the exulting crowd. Then it's just him and the bracing cold and empty skies that stretch on forever. In that moment, more than any other moment, more than all the moments in his wild and crazy life put together, he feels so small and so big, so full and empty and really, fully, _alive._

He doesn't say the word yet, but it tiptoes on his tongue, almost ready.

* * *

Amid the near-constant flurry of calls and event planning— he needs another manager for the next couple of months or so— Javi sneaks in a few moments to check on any news from Tsushima. He types _feathers + medicine + swans_ in the searchbar, yet the only leads he finds about the group he encountered are a few articles about the history and scandals of the _Dojin-kai yakuza_ operating in Fukuoka. The styled flower symbol resembles a seal he saw in the camp, and some of the descriptions seem to fit, like drug trafficking, prostitution, and its preference for isolation, but the specifics are harder to dig up. If there's any useful information on the net, it would have to be in the rumored dark web, and he has no idea how to get there.

So he bides his time and focuses on more pressing matters. Like where he'll be staying when he vacates his Toronto apartment for good.

The closing ceremony draws near. Super Javi makes a comeback in all its cheese-colored glory. His parting gift, his legacy, a little bit of entertainment to close the first act and set the stage for the moonlight lake under a sky full of withered stars.

The feathers are pristine as always. When he bends, the illusion mesh stretches like wing grooves down the deep V-cut of his back. It's so white, so perfect, so pure. Like soap.

He misses the black swan.


	43. IX

[Javi]

The sun wakes up over the Yokohama skyline, and so does Javier. His arm loosens its comforting grip on his pillow and he spends the early hour scrolling through a dozen reminders of this week's jam-packed _Stars_ _on_ _Ice_ schedule, fighting the temptation to sink back into parting whispers of sleep.

 _"Javi,"_ a voice threads out of pre-dawn shadows, whipping deep into the maze of his ear. His eyes drift lazily toward a figure standing by the table: male, Japanese, in a costume, Yuzu, Olympic…

_Wait._

He rubs his eyes. He pinches both cheeks. And no, the apparition does not disappear.

"Y-Yuzu?"

"Javi. Remember me?"

"Huh? We saw each other the other month, right? And is it me or do you look younger today?" _And a bit shorter,_ too.

"The wind took me," he explains in a voice slightly higher in pitch than Javi's accustomed to. _The wind took me_ — as if the wind ever cared about free public transport. But of course, what a very Yuzu thing to say.

Except something's not right. It's Yuzu, talks and looks like Yuzu, but the feeling is wrong.

Pastel spring tones and coral frills enfold him in an illusion of warmth. He looks around seventeen or eighteen. He looks like… like… a memory.

A memory.

_Petals blooming in the dead cold Russian winter._

_Star lakes and laughter, quiet morning strolls and steaming broth._

No way. It couldn't be.

He feels a warm surge in the plumbing leading to his heart, hears flashes pinging in his head in congress with its beat, sees blurred afterimages resurrecting, and the syllables drop from his tongue before he realizes it.

"Haru?"

The boy's smile turns fonder, and his eyes crinkle into a pair of sliced moons identical to the ones buried in idyllic half-forgotten memories.

"Javi. Did you miss me?"

* * *

 _Nine years is a long, long time,_ Javi muses, setting down the parcel of toast and donuts he grabbed from the café downstairs. For normal humans _,_ at least _._ Nearly a decade has passed since Vancouver and the fairy-like boy hasn't lost his youthful glow.

"You look different," observes Haru. He's scrutinizing Javi's face like a Rubik's cube. "Are those wrinkles? Your curls are gone, and your beard—!"

"What's wrong with my beard?"

"It's like those fuzzy caterpillars from the forest."

"You sure? Doesn't it make me look, you know, cool?"

"Javi. It's _awful_."

And this is the story of how Javier Fernandez, two-time world champion and Olympic bronze medalist, is convinced to get rid of his facial hair.

Actually no, he's not giving it up. Not even if his coach, his team, and the entire country of Japan requests him to. _Sorry, Haru, but no._

Haru props himself on his elbows, smile deceptively innocent. "No ramen either?"

"Ah," Javi starts, already walking towards the stash of dried noodles he keeps in every hotel room in every city he tours, for some instinctual reason, "as a matter of fact, I do."

 _It feels like a lifetime ago,_ he chuckles to himself while rummaging through his supplies— steam turning to fog in the winter air, chopstick battles, conversations over the cheapest bowl of soup he could find on the menu. Life was both harder and less complicated back then, and while he'd rather skydive off the roof of a cathedral than chance a reunion with his former coach, there are some hard-fought memories that even the brilliance of Spain and Canada cannot replace.

"You're lucky," Javi says as he unwraps the fancy paper bag. "My wallet is a lot happier than it used to be. I could cook a mountain of noodles if you want." He fishes out four Nissin packs from the woodstained shelf. "Is this enough?" he calls over his shoulder.

"Si!" Haru shoots back, happily perched on one of two speckled ebony Monoblocs.

 _Spanish, huh?_ Javi gives him an appraising look as he swings his feet under the table. He's like a kid on sugar high, and he's… what, _seventeen?_ Seventeen plus nine? How old is he?

"Twenty three," Haru answers the question Javi belatedly remembers voicing out loud.

"Yuzu's age?"

Haru hums in reply.

"You sure don't look twenty-three."

"I'm not normal, remember?"

"Oh right, I forgot, you're an _alien_. I guess aliens aren't supposed to grow up."

Haru bites his lip into silence, leaving Javi to wonder where he picked up that gesture. The boy stares fixated on the cup noodle packaging like a sought after treasure, and then Javi's watching too, fascinated by how the cascade of pure liquid into the plastic changes things. A little water, a little heat, and the hard wiggly chunks inside turn to strands of mush.

In a moment of epiphany, Javi wishes he were hot water.

Haru picks up his chopsticks. "Itadakimasu!" he says, cueing any existential soliloquys to escort themselves out the door.

Javi rests his arm on the table, reminiscing the last instance he saw Haru chugging empty calories down his throat. The waning years have not touched him. It's as if the decade since his last appearance was nothing but a crazy dream.

But it can't be. The Javi of today is a far cry from the teen made of sparkplugs and short fuses, and in his battle-wizened eyes Haru is no longer the mythical creature who's a bit of a boy and a bit of a bird and a bit of something else.

Still, he isn't the least bit surprised when Haru wolfs down the whole serving. All that's lacking is a bit of snow outside and a few Russian roubles on the table and it's like nothing ever changed.

Oh, and his beard. He'll have to shave his beard.

_Nope. No way._

"Ngh—spaischy—"

Haru's garbled speech prompts him to check the packaging label. _Should have gotten beef instead._

"—oo much chili—" Haru grimaces, glaring at the strands dangling from his chopsticks. He shoves them down his throat anyway.

Javi shakes his head with a long-forgotten fondness. His friend's ravenous appetite is contagious. He turns his attention to his own plate. The golden brown of buttered toast looks irresistible this morning; it's the most beautiful thing in the world. Half of him wants to savor it, half wants to cram it down his throat in one swallow.

He settles for a medium-sized bite to munch on. "So, Yutsuru—"

Haru glares. " _Javi_ ," he grinds his teeth in warning.

"Sorry, sorry, I forgot you hated that."

"結鶴 _, the bound crane_ — who wants to be named after a tied up bird?"

"Hey," Javi says, biting off another piece of the crunchy bread in a scene so undebatably mundane it's surreal, "did you ever think that maybe the crane isn't tied up anymore? Maybe it broke free and it's carrying the string as a reminder. Some people do that."

Haru ponders his suggestion, licking his lips. There's a dribble of broth on his chin. He wipes it away with the knuckles of his thumb and sets his bowl on the table.

He says nothing, so Javi goes on. "Just imagine how everyone would react when they discover there's _two_ skaters with Yuzu's face in this world. Three, actually, if you count in Ori— wait, you know Origin, don't you? When he said there was a fairy in the forest, that was _you_ , wasn't it?"

"Yes," Haru confirms, laying his chopsticks flat across the disposable bowl. Javi glances at its perfect emptiness.

"You're _really_ hungry."

"I missed this," Haru says, already tearing off plastic foil from another cup. He starts pouring more hot water when a thought crosses Javi's mind.

"Weren't you able to eat instant noodles on that island? I swear that's almost all they ever fed us in the camp."

"Origin wouldn't share any!" And there it is, that adorable pout.

Javi snorts. "I still can't believe you were there all this time. Why couldn't I see you?"

"Hmmm… maybe because you have bad eyes."

Javi's brow shoots up at the accusation. "I'm getting an operation soon," he says, reaching for another slice of toast.

"Oh," says Haru.

And then a whisper. "I thought you forgot me."

Javi's breath screeches to a full stop.

 _What_.

He unsticks his throat with a sip of black coffee. "Why?"

"You mistook me for Otoñal."

"When?"

"In the cabin. In the cave. Several times."

Javi chokes. _"That's_ why you hid?" More coughs. "Because I kept blurting out Yuzu's name when you came by to say hello?"

"You had Otoñal to train with, and you were a double World Champion already. You didn't need me anymore."

"But you didn't even ask? You didn't even try?"

"One Yuzuru is enough."

 _Yes_ , his mind agrees, before he can process Haru's words. Two Yuzurus is too much.

But no. That doesn't make sense. Haru isn't Yuzu. Why would he think that—

Unless—

 _Of course_. Javi sees it all the time in the competitive circuit. Isn't this every skater's greatest fear? Isn't it every athlete's?

"Haru, did you think that Yuzu _replaced_ you?"

Silence.

"That's impossible. How can anyone replace you?"

" _They_ did."

"Who? Those creepy scientists who kept hovering around?"

No answer.

 _Oh_.

Javi's voice gentles. Haru's frowning like a cat, like a sad cat, like a sad cat that has been sad for so long.

It's unsettling.

He digs his fingers into the boy's shoulders. "Haru… no. No. Yuzu could never, ever take your place."

Haru worries his lip, unconvinced, and Javi sees echoes of that stubborn streak that robbed Brian of his hair. " _Yes_ , you're more similar to him than you realize. But you're still different. I know that."

"But—"

"It's true." He wipes down breakfast with the last of his coffee and waits for Haru to process his words.

Maybe the simple acknowledgment is what the boy needed all along. His pained frown slowly dissolves, his expression turns from deeply bothered to pensive. Like a younger version of Yuzu, but not entirely.

And the more Javi thinks about it, the more he notices. He hasn't seen Haru in nearly a decade, but going by what he remembers, Yuzu's the one always on a mission to leave some kind of legacy bigger than his own dreams, walking through life as if he owes the world some feat of greatness for everyone's sake. Haru just is; he picks his friends and wants to be the best, and longs to be a normal kid with an extra helping of superpowers. And they may share the same playfulness and talkativeness and unquenchable drive, but they're two different people.

Even if they share the same face.

"Is that why you only visited now? Because I'm finally leaving Cricket and retiring?"

Haru shakes his head. "It's not that… I just hoped you could help me with something."

"Ah," Javi says, feeling a bit hurt. "I see. You need my help."

"I don't _need_ you to help me," Haru amends, looking conflicted. "But," he adds with rarely displayed earnestness, "I thought you might want to."

"Oh? What's wrong?"

"It's a long story."

"I've got chips," Javi says, preparing for the worst. Unease rankles the hairs on his arm. Something bad happened, he knows, in the way one can tell a piece of metal is hot or freezing before touching it.

To his surprise, Haru takes his time, breathing in two more bowls of the wiry stuff before reclining on the backrest with a catlike smirk. He's hesitating, and that's not a typical Haru thing to do. Whatever's on his mind is no simple matter, so Javi carefully diverts the conversation until Haru's ready.

"I still can't believe it— I thought I was just hallucinating in Russia," he remarks.

"I wasn't a hallucination," Haru says, staring longingly at Javi's food stash for a possible _fifth_ serving. That part certainly hasn't changed. The boy's love affair with ramen remains endearingly perplexing.

"Hey, isn't your stomach going to hurt from eating too much?" Javi warns him.

"I'm not human, remember? I won't get a stomachache," claims Haru, but he does stop himself from devouring the rest of the food.

"You never did tell me exactly what you are."

Haru offers a wan smile of apology and the list of things Javi planned to ask trickles down to a question. "How can there be three people in the world who love skating, are Japanese, and share the same face? The first one isn't even human, and the third one is a twin of the second. Is that just a coincidence?"

"Cloning," Haru answers, and what kind of joke is that.

" _Cloning_? But that's—"

"Impossible? Incredible? Unbelievable?"

It's crazy, that's what. One big fat joke on steroids.

Wait, it _is_ a joke, right? _Right?_

Haru unfolds the laptop on the table, turning on the power without permission. He passes the device to Javi.

"Password?"

Javi taps his fingers on the keys, and those few seconds are enough for Haru to start twirling snow around. He glances at the boy's open palm, where crystal flakes are condensing. Is he more anxious than usual or his boredom threshold really that low?

Haru types and clicks, types and clicks, and directs him to an abstract in one of his multiple browser tabs. Javi adjusts his reading glasses with his finger, pushing them higher up his nose bridge to keep from squinting.

 _The Question of Human Cloning,_ John A. Robertson, 1994.

"That's Yuzu's birthyear," Javi notes.

"And the year I was completed," Haru chimes in.

"Is your birthday in December too?"

"March," Haru corrects him. "My _firstday_ is in spring. A sample was taken to be cloned after a week."

"You mean there was actual human cloning going on in 1994? I thought that was only in the movies."

Haru grins and opens another tab.

_Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) DNA sequencing, 1985._

_Gateway Cloning System. Developed by Invitrogen; commercialized late 1990s._

Javi feels the floor cave beneath him. "Yuzu and Origin are your clones."

"They are."

"Yuzu and Origin are your _clones._ "

"Yes."

"They're your clones! I can't believe this— so that means Origin got his feathers from you? But why doesn't Yuzu have any?"

"Origin's _condition_ is a result of DNA recombination. There must have been a problem with the cloning vector," Haru surmises, clicking on a diagram of steps to manipulate human cells.

"Are those bacteria?" Javi guesses.

"Plasmids," Haru corrects him. "Genes spliced incorrectly are susceptible to mutations. In the twins' case, a single embryo split in two, but only one carried the genetic aberration. The other was completely normal."

Haru clicks on the search box and types.

" _Cutaneous_ _mosaicism?_ "

"That's one of the possibilities—a variant in skin cell mutations caused by an error in the recombined DNA sequence. It could have been viral contamination, since the technology was still in development."

Javi drags the back of his wrist against his forehead, doing his best to process the information. This whole cloning business is starting to sound like the plot of a superhero comic. What's next, radioactive spiders?

"I read an article once about how some people are genetically predisposed to certain viral skin conditions," Javi recalls, trying to follow Haru's logic. "The description was slightly different from this one."

"Origin's case may be a variant, since the process of conception for the twins was unusual. That explains why the growths on his skin resemble feathers."

"But how is— why— who would do such a thing?"

" _Project Sekkisei._ "

"Sekkisei? Isn't that a brand of cosmetics?"

"It is. It's also the name of a project by a private research company near Fujiyama that went undercover when Japan banned human cloning in 2000," explains Haru. " _Sekkisei_ means snow fairy. That's what we were supposed to be." Haru pauses for a moment, looking every bit as forlorn as the boy he befriended in Moscow.

"But you're not."

"No," Haru agrees. "I'm not."

A quick Google search leads them to a series of diagrams, electron microscope imaging, and unpronounceable scientific terms that exist only to give Javi a head-splitting migraine. Still he presses on, determined to find the answers to this mystery once and for all.

He stares at the text onscreen and grimaces.

_Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer: a technique by which the nucleus of an adult cell is transferred to an unfertilized egg cell stripped of its nucleus. The resulting cell is then electrically induced to divide and form a blastocyst that develops into an embryo, which is then is implanted into a surrogate mother. By this process, a fully-developed cell taken from an adult organism is utilized to create clone embryos containing genetic material from the donor, as opposed to previous experiments in which only embryonic stems cells could be used to form clones. Entailing the destruction of the donor cell body and the erasure of genetic material in the receiver, it was used to create Dolly the sheep in 1996 and various animals including a significant number of cows cloned in Japan for improved meat and milk production._

"But that was in 1996," Javi points out, congratulating himself for remembering at least one percent of his Science lessons back in the day. "Otoñal was born in 1994. And over two decades later, there hasn't been a single research team able to create a human clone."

Haru's response is to type something even more complicated into the search bar. "There's more. Look."

_2006: Professor Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and biologist Sir John Gurdon were awarded a Noble Prize for generating Induced Pluripotent Stem cells, which are adult cells altered to resemble embryonic stem cells, possessing the ability to divide into any of the three primary cell layers of a vertebrate embryo._

_2008: Stemagen Corporation laboratory in California successfully created five human embryos using Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer, all of which developed into blastocysts before being destroyed._

_2013: Tachibana et. al described a new method of deriving embryonic stem cells using Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer. Prior to this, all attempts had resulted in premature destruction of the embryos. The new method was successfully replicated, thus proving its potential for therapeutic cloning applications._

Javi scrolls down, and reads, and reads, and reads, but the words are jumbled in his head and all he's getting is a truckload of regret for not taking Biology more seriously in highschool. This feels like a freaking Pandora's box.

"I still don't understand," he confesses. "All of these took place after 1994. None of the cloned human cells survived beyond the test tube. None of them grew into babies, and none were actually born."

"Yes, no one has ever been able to create live human clones, and in 1994 no one knew how to do it."

"Then how were Otoñal and Origin cloned, if cloning humans is impossible?"

"The researchers behind Project Sekkisei decided it would be futile to attempt clone a real human being. They chose me instead. I'm not normal, so the limitations of human cells don't apply."

Yep, Javi can really feel that headache coming on.

"So they made a human clone from a non-human?"

"My cell structure is similar to embryonic stem cells. This is how my physical body regenerates in late fall and becomes dormant at the start of summer," Haru explains.

"Is that also why you can turn invisible?"

"Not really. That's mostly because of Thales."

"Thales? What's a thales?"

"The ancient Greek philosopher Thales believed that everything is made of water. Human bodies are 60 percent water; the brain and heart go as high as 73%."

"That still doesn't explain anything."

" _Sekkisei_ means snow fairy; snow is one of the phases of water. It can vaporize, flow through the air, and turn solid again. _"_

"Like the hydrologic cycle?"

"Like evaporation, dissipation, condensation, and sublimation."

Whatever answer he was expecting, it was certainly not another mini lesson. _Haru, Haru, be nice to my poor old brain, Haru._ He's approaching the limits of his imagination, and he could really use a refresher course on grade-school thermodynamics right now.

"Androids, cloning, artificial intelligence, human engineering— they're not just in the movies. For years researchers and intelligence agencies have been trying to achieve the one thing that humankind has wanted for centuries."

"Which is?"

"Immortality."

_Of course. Immortality. How brilliant._

Javi rubs knuckles in circles around his temples, feeling his brain about to combust courtesy of invisible wrecking balls and meteor collisions. This isn't a Pandora's box anymore; this is falling through a trapdoor into a rabbithole to Neverland at the bottom of an ocean in a dragon's belly at the end of the galaxy.

"Tell me about the project," he requests.

Haru obliges. "There've been attempts to extend human life since World War II. Cryogenics, cloning, and humanoid fairies were only some of them."

"I heard about the human experiments in Nazi concentration camps."

Haru turns his attention back to the laptop and starts typing.

"Japan had its counterpart," he says, and clicks a link.

 _The infamous Manshu Detachment 731 of World War II, officially known as the_ _Kantōgun Bōeki Kyūsuibu Honbu, was established by the Imperial Japanese Army in Pingfang District in Heilongjiang Province w_ _ith branches in other parts of China and Southeast Asia. A_ _wartime research facility connected to Unit 731 under the direction of Surgeon General Shir_ _ō_ _Ishii was located in Toyama District in_ _Shinjuku_ _Ward,_ _Tokyo_ _. In a 1992 study, skulls excavated from the site were found to have holes and cuts drilled into them, speculated to be signs of brain surgery._

"They never truly stopped," Haru says, typing again. The screen loads a grayscale picture of a familiar historic explosion. "But Chernobyl is where they succeeded."

_Chernobylite: a uranium-zirconium silicate found in the corium, or radioactive lava, from Chernobyl. Through risky extraction methods, samples were obtained and the radioactive isotopes isolated for use as a catalyst for unclassified experiments before it cooled down ten years later._

Javi is confused. The kind of confused where eyes feel like they spin on an axis and the skull hires a demolition team and brain cells decide to try somersaults around the asteroid belt.

_Hold on a second, does that mean Spiderman's real?_

Thankfully Haru takes mercy on him. He explains how a group of survivors theorized that the destructive energy that claimed life might be used to preserve it. How a base was established in Japan with satellites abroad to further their research in secret, how the unauthorized human engineering and cloning experiments carried on until new bioethics restrictions imposed a ban in 2001.

"Our existence is the same— the brain of a dying child stripped of its memories, implanted in a synthetic vessel, and passed off as an artificial fairy."

A child? Haru has the mind of a _child?_ Bits and pieces from years ago make more sense now— running around the toy store, all those silly pranks— it dawns on him that Haru himself must be struggling with the mental faculties of a twenty-three-year-old _child_.

"In the spring of 1994, six months after the brain transplant successfully fused with the rest of my body, I woke up."

"And you had wings."

"The membrane was based on dragonflies, the design patterned after cranes. Someone wanted to commemorate Hiroshima and Nagasaki and they did it through me."

"I'm sure they were beautiful." A shame he missed the chance to see them.

"Do you know the story of Kaguya-hime?"

Javi does not.

More typing, more clicks, and here it is.

_The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter: There was once an old man who found a girl the size of his thumb and a nugget of gold within the bamboo stalk he cut down. He took her to his wife and they raised her as their own child. She grew to be a very beautiful maiden with many suitors, including the emperor, all of whom she rejected. The old couple saw her cry at night and grow lonelier each day, and when they inquired the cause of her sorrow, she replied that she was a celestial princess, and longed to return to her home in the moon. The day finally came when a procession of lunar beings descended the night sky to escort her back. She was given a feather robe that would allow her to fly across the heavens and she was never seen again._

"After Kaguya-hime returned home, the emperor wrote a letter to her and had it burned together with the elixir of immortality on Japan's highest peak in hope that it would reach the moon," Haru narrates. "Do you know what mountain that was?"

"Let me guess… Mt. Fuji?"

Haru nods. "Fujiyama's name comes from _fushi_ , which means immortality."

"Is that why you kept mentioning that place? Hey, are you sure this has nothing to do with _Sekkisei_ _Miyabi?_ I heard its headquarters are in Tokyo too."

"The cosmetics line might have been an inspiration. Kosé launched it just a couple of years before the Chernobyl disaster," Haru theorizes, highlighting a line of text.

 _Popularized in the Heian period, t_ _he concept of miyabi_ _seeks to eliminate all roughness and crudity so as to achieve the highest grace…_

"They wanted us to be _perfect_."

"Whoaw." Talk about complicated. Even Morozov wasn't that twisted.

He pats the boy's shoulder in sympathy. His fingertips brush the fabric, light and gossamer-thin, and he realizes something.

"Is this… the heavenly robe?"

Haru glances down at his clothes. "Partly. It was also based on another myth."

Javi thinks hard for a minute. Cherry blossoms… six months of winter and summer… could it be…?

"You're the _goddess of spring?_ But she's not Japanese!"

"They used legends from different parts of the world. One of us had a snake's tail. One even had fins. Do you remember the story I told you about the shepherd who was loved by the moon?"

"The guy who was cursed to sleep forever?"

"Yes. They named the fifteenth prototype after him. He's the last one I saw. I'm the seventh, and the first model built with feathers."

"Do you all have your own secret hideouts all over Japan?"

Haru breaks his gaze for a moment. "The meltdown at Fukushima destroyed most of us; the rest were decommissioned. With the reactors shut down, it was impossible to continue the project. One senior leader took his life. Another died of drug overdose. They couldn't risk an experiment gone rogue, and since my connection to the power source was terminated, I was the only one not affected. I was asleep for years with no energy besides sunlight and thunderstorms until the nuclear plants were reconfigured."

If Javi's his head was spinning earlier, now it's pirouetting on a rollercoaster orbiting the sun at two thousand light years per minute. Because no matter how many sci-fi movies he's watched, or how many videogames he's played, there is no way he would have dreamed up something as crazy as this.

"What were you doing in that island? If they took you to Fujiyama, how did you end up in Tsushima?"

"There were rumors about fairies in those islands and magic waters. Project Sekkisei had a base nearby and I went looking for a new power source to rectify the energy depletion when they cut me off."

"Ah… you heard of the swan fairy legend!" Javi exclaims, impressed. Human or not, Haru's will to live is remarkable. "Well? Did you find anything?"

"No. Healing springs can treat physical ailments but they can't give life to a body that should not exist. I tried, Javi. It didn't work."

"But you're here now. That means whatever power source you're connected to is working."

"Until I break down for good," Haru says, and Javi's smile falls. "There's no one around to fix me anymore. We weren't built to last, Javi."

"But you said it yourself, you survived twenty-three years. You might be able to live twenty-three more."

"I don't think so."

"Maybe if you track down one of those scientists—"

Haru shakes his head. "Humans play with the thread of fate, thinking they can control it. But it was never theirs to touch," he continues, sounding far too wise for the child he claims to be, and the untimely fall of Patrick's magnificent _Dust in the Wind_ seeps into Javi's mind. "When the time comes, I, too will—"

Okay, he's had enough. This is too much information for one day. He hasn't seen the boy in eight years and now he shows up out of the blue just to read his own death sentence.

"I think I know how the story goes," he interrupts Haru's macabre prognosis. It feels like salt in a wound, or chili peppers, or both with a dollop of pure acid on top. "Isn't there anything I can do to help?"

Haru purses his lips. Javi, too, finds solace in the sudden muteness.

"Hey."

No response.

"Haru." He bops him lightly on the head.

"Ow! Ow! Javi!"

"Have you met Yuzu yet? In person, I mean," he changes topic.

"I found him on the beach. The Hanyu family was on vacation that day. Saya was an only child and they wanted a son, so they took him in." He looks a bit sad as he says this. Perhaps it's because Haru has no real parents to speak of.

"I told Otoñal about you."

That brings an amused smile to Javi's face. "So that's why he came to Canada, eh? It wasn't just the Salchow?"

"I told him about your _improvised_ buttspins," Haru confides cheekily. "I never thought you'd one day share a home rink on the other side of the ocean. Now you both have Olympic medals."

 _Once upon a time_ , Javi reminisces, _there was a fairy who dreamed of the Olympic podium._ But the fairy disappeared, and Yuzuru Hanyu showed up, and Javi forgot. And they became training mates, and then they were rivals, and the long and winding road of years and years has made them friends.

The room blurs into impressions of shape and color and he pulls Haru into a tight hug full of unspoken sympathy for all the chances he could have had. "I wish I was there for you," he mumbles.

"Not your fault," Haru assures him, and he realizes that he hasn't showed off his medal yet. He leads Haru to the display case, now fully visible in the morning light.

Haru's eyes widen in excitement, like a child's. "Wow, that's a lot of gold." His fingers curl around the glass. "Oh, is that your Olympic medal? It's beautiful, Javi! And that white tiger is cute, too!"

"His name's Soohorang," he informs Haru. "Hey, what happened to the plushie I bought you?"

"I left it with Otoñal."

"You… you left it with…" Javi sputters, "wait… you mean… that was his first Pooh?"

"I thought it would cheer him up. He liked it."

" _Liked_ it? He practically started a cult around it!" He lifts Soohorang out of the sliding glass and lets Haru play with the mashup of pointed stripes and a fangless smile. "I promised I'd give that to Origin the next time we meet."

The somber look on Haru's face makes Javi worry. "How is he anyway?"

Haru twitches Soohorang's ears, waves its clawless arm, squeezes its plump, pink-centered feet. "I don't know," he admits. "I haven't seen him since he left the island."

"He _what_?"

"He left the island. He was gone when I woke up. I can't find his friend, and the only other people he's close to are you and his brother."

"And Yuzu can't remember who he is," Javi finishes. The aftertaste of sugarless coffee swells around his tongue. "So that's why you came to me."

Haru's thumb presses the Olympic rings on the plushie's stomach. "I'm sorry."

For what, Javi doesn't bother to find out. "Come here," he says, like he did with Origin, like he did with Yuzu on a loud and starless night in Finland so many years ago, "let me tell you a story."

* * *

Javi believes his life can be plotted in a series of maps taped edge to edge, and today he takes Haru through the podiums and alleys of his journey. He talks about TCC, about Brian's offer to coach at Toronto and the ice show in the works.

After waves crash they go under; when he retires he'll return to skating again. Unless circumstances lay siege to his plans, he's got a whole lifetime ahead to climb towards his other, equally precious dream born out of burritos replacing _empanada_ and _tortilla Española_ in the foreign heat of other people's kitchens and the scent of _tarta de Santiago_ pied-pipering him home. He wants a skating school in his native land. He wants them to know his story, so they can write their own. He wants them to be safe. There is no need for a repeat of the melodramatic soap opera that is Javier Fernandez's career.

History has countless ways to sing an epic, and this is his. There is nothing glorious about this retelling at all. It is sad and it is wrong. That is what it is. That is why he so rarely speaks of it. His tongue is notoriously loose, like a cannon, but only with things that do not shred his flesh, and hack through his nights, and detonate his silence.

This is the last chapter for the man throwing the glass bottle, the child forced to watch, the pieces shattering on the floor. The glass, no longer a bottle, the man, no longer an adult, the child, forever stuck in the infinity between the bottle self-destructing on the wall and the wreckage of shards afterward.

The next generation, he vows, will have it better.

"Why _Yuushuu_?" Haru inquires when Javi runs out of words. "Was it 憂愁 as in deep sadness? Or 幽囚 meaning imprisonment?"

"優秀 for excellence. Because even if he lost that day, nothing will change how amazing he is. That's something my coaches taught me. I wanted him to know that."

Haru falls silent, and they bask in the contented solitude of questions given voice to at last. He sits on the edge of the bed, keeping his mind off the rehearsals scheduled in a few hours. Even now the haunting lines of Pablo Alboran scratch at his ear.

_Prometo que no pasarán los años,_

_arrancaré del calendario las despedidas grises,_

_los días más felices no han llegado…_

It's a song of wishes and second chances. It's a song for them. For Origin, child of sky and mountains, skating against the heavy sizzle of summer storms and peals of thunder, battling the wind marshalling his hair into whips. For Haru, the boy too young and too old for this life, like Javi was. For Yuzu, who slammed into the color palette of training grounds bereft of Haru's presence in the way autumn creeps into the void left by spring. He wants to gather them in a group hug and not let go until their hands melt into each other, like the family that time and circumstances wouldn't let them be.

But a song is just a song, and Origin is still missing, and Yuzu doesn't have a clue about his origin— even if they break into each other's constellations there's no way to fix that— and no matter what Haru thinks, Javi is no more capable of bringing this puzzle together than the fools who split it up in the first place.

 _"_ _I want see my brother again,"_ Origin told him, and Javi, blind dreamer Javi, promised everything would be alright and ran away.

He should have talked to Yuzu. He should have done something.

And then Haru… Haru gets up, and sifts through his music library, and plays a different tune.

"Origin will find us. I trust him. We just need to be patient," Haru says, clear-eyed and full of hope, and just like the endless northern winters, like the uphill climb to be world champion, like the eternal stretch between the starting line and the Olympic podium, Javi grits his teeth and waits.

* * *

* * *

[Haru]

The first week in Spain is fun. There are lots of places to go sightseeing and lots of food. Javi's wallet is indeed much happier these days, and Haru gets a taste of everything from _bocadillo de calamares_ to _milhojas de crema pastelera y nata_. It's amusing how Javi manages to be simultaneously busier and more relaxed now than Haru's ever seen him. He claims it's a side effect of retirement. One minute he's on the phone with his therapist laughing at some joke and the next minute he's moaning in despair.

"He was serious?!"

Haru gobbles down the last piece of _leche frita._ "What happened? Is everything okay?"

"I forgot I'm supposed to be in Japan on the 15th. Ahhhhhhhh! This is terrible! My schedule's all messed up."

 _Continues_ _with_ _Wings,_ Haru's mind supplies. His tongue is bitter with poetic irony.

It takes Haru only a few seconds to confirm that it is indeed Javi's name on the t-shirt, right above Yuzu's.

How terrible, indeed.

"You didn't know about this? Were you _drunk_ when he told you?"

"I— I, uh…"

" _Javi_."

"I thought it was a joke! I mean, he couldn't possibly—"

"Javi. Your name is printed on the official merchandise."

"Aughhhh….what was I even thinking? I can't believe I agreed to that. It's his ice show about his skating heroes. I don't belong there!"

Haru crosses his arms. "You _promised_."

"But it's going to be on my birthday!" Javi panics. "I can't be in Spain and Japan at the same time, can I? Unless I find a way to clone myself, which I can't—"

"You can't," Haru agrees.

Javi throws up his hands in despair. "Haruuuu, I'm doooomed!"

" _Ja-vi_." _Behave_ , he almost says, growing weary of his friend's truckload of excuses.

"Alright, alright, I know. Yuzu mentioned a livestream option," he concedes. "But only if you wake me up. I am _not_ setting an alarm for four a.m."

"Deal."

And then on the eve of the third day of the ice show, he goes and parties like there's no tomorrow.

Haru is not amused, and he makes sure to let Javi know, though whether his friend even hears a word of reprimand when he stumbles in and flops on the bed is debatable. At least he remembers to kick off his shoes.

 _This guy is hopeless._ But what's done is done, and Javi will simply have to face the consequences tomorrow.

He waits at the kitchen and sinks eager teeth into Javi's share of _nastillas_. The hours rush on like the spokes of a wheel, dragging the moon with it. The clock hums its same monotonous hymn; two lizards do a cross-country race across the wall. Haru watches the stars begin to fade and then begins his task. He shakes and tugs and steals pillows until Javi snaps up like a zombie straight out of a graveyard, thirty minutes before dawn. His feet find the way to the bathroom on autopilot, he successfully burns pancakes into hockey pucks, and the fog on his senses seems to dissipate on the way to the rink.

He'll survive.

Haru helps him set up the connection. He positions the external camera, tests the earphones and mic, and ensures the battery of the laptop is fully charged, buying the poor Spaniard time to change into his _La Mancha_ costume and attempt to skate in a straight line without falling over.

"Whoa-whoawww."

He almost does.

Haru snickers.

"Hey! I'm _trying,_ okay? _"_

Javi gives up on jumps. He staggers through the step sequence, groaning.

Haru laughs even harder.

_Serves him right._

His skin looks clammy. Yup, he's sweating.

"You can do it, Javi!"

Javi gulps nervously. "I may have had too much wine last night. The rink… it's spinning."

"This is a very, very, very bad idea," he sniffs. "If I faint, turn the webcam off."

"Haruuuuuuu," he groans for the hundredth time.

Haru bats down a sigh. _Humans. Such complicated creatures._

"Get ready, Javi. It's showtime!" Haru can't resist teasing the poor fool.

"Noooooooo," Javi wails.

"And three…two…one…go!"

What Haru gets to witness firsthand is the drunken skate to end all drunken skates. That pirate program Javi did in Vancouver could never hold a candle to this ingenious mess.

It's brilliant.

"Thank you so much, Yuzu. It's so early in Spain, really, really, really early," Javi drawls when the monumentally ridiculous ordeal is over.

Behind the camera, Haru giggles.

"Thank you for the congratulations," he says after a while, as Haru sorts through the secret stash of Javi's _baby pictures_ he discovered/borrowed/stole for this occasion.

Haru selects a particularly embarrassing photo and moves it towards the camera. Javi discretely snatches it from his grasp, still maintaining that brilliant, breathless smile for the audience's sake.

Haru finds another picture and waves it around threateningly. Javi pinches him in the thigh.

Lucky for Javi, Yuzuru also deems him too hungover to continue, and abruptly waves goodbye. Javi blows a kiss to the crowd and it's over before Haru gets to the picture of a young Spanish boy in, judging by Javi's threatening fist, utterly mortifying shorts.

As soon as the stream cuts off, Javi rips out his earphones and tears the photo from his hands.

" _Maldito!_ "

Taking that as his cue to vanish, Haru exits the rink and takes a taxi back to Javi's apartment. The lock clicks open with a deft turn of his spare keys as snowflakes start whirling at the tips of fingers, and in less than an hour a disgruntled Spaniard walks inside to find his furniture transformed into an indoor winter wonderland smack in the middle of April to commemorate his birthday.

One count. Two counts. One gaping jaw. Two clenched fists. An everlasting intake of breath.

Here it comes.

He giggles into his palm.

"HARUUUUUUUUUUU!"

* * *

* * *

**Timeline of Events**

1990s: Launch of _Project_ _Sekkisei_ in Tokyo

1994 March: Artificial humanoid Yutsuru (Haru) becomes operational; Otoñal's & Origin's future mother is recruited and impregnated by organization's research team, flees to _Hakuchou_ _Hisui_ in Tsushima Archipelago

1994 December: twins' mother gives birth to Haru's clones (stated as Dec. 7 in Yuzuru Hanyu's official records)

2001: Japan enacts ban on cloning; _Project_ _Sekkisei_ continues but with structural changes and relocations to Moscow and other satellites in subsequent years; cloning operations halted altogether

2008: Javi meets Haru in Moscow shortly after Morozov offers to coach him; he flies to New Jersey for training

2009: Javi's team temporarily relocates to Moscow during Spring and Summer and reunites with Haru; Haru returns to Japan for an overhaul but decides against it at the last moment; Otoñal is separated from his brother and sacrificed to the ocean in a decennial ritual but survives and is found by Haru at Tsushima and adopted by the Hanyu family; intrigued by the possibility that the amnesiac Otoñal is his clone, Haru travels to the boy's home where he meets Origin and goes into hibernation when he is cut off permanently from _Project_ _Sekkisei's_ nuclear power source network

2010: Javi participates in the Vancouver Olympics; Otoñal, who now goes by the name Yuzuru Hanyu, enters the Senior circuit

2011 March 11: Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima power plant disaster; Yuzuru survives but his home rink is destroyed; the earthquake triggers an avalanche that destroys Origin's village, he becomes an outcast wandering the forest with the company of his foreign mentor and later, a shady Yakuza-linked business group with ties to a rebel movement

2012: Yuzu joins the Cricket Club; Javi's PTSD muddles his memories of Haru, leading him to confuse his friend with his new rinkmate

2015 December: The first nuclear reactor to resume operations refuels the only remaining Project Sekkisei humanoid in existence: Haru

2017 April: Javi arrives at _Hakuchou_ _Hisui_ and befriends Origin; he returns in time for the summer ice shows

2018: The revolutionary cause turns destructive; left with no home, Origin abandons the island; Yuzu and Javi share the Olympic podium; Haru reappears in Yokohama

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, folks.


	44. X

**_I'll be your eyes_ , ** **_'til yours can shine_ **

**_I'll be your arms, I'll be your steady satellite_ **

**_And when you can't rise_ **

**_Well, I'll crawl with you on hands and knees_ **

**_Cause I, I'm gonna stand by you_**

**_— Rachel Platten_ **

* * *

Dark is the beach under the serenity of the full moon. The sleepless ebbing of waves sends him dreams of his mother; she rises with the mist and sings wisteria into bloom with the weeping of her flute. And then she is gone in the way only orphans know, leaving him standing on the moon-kissed sand with his brother, and the two of them are all that's left.

On impulse he grabs his twin's hand and makes a wish. If he holds on tight and doesn't let go, won't his brother be there when he wakes up? His fingers lock around Otoñal's wrist and clamp down until he is sure there's no way he can slip through his grasp, no way the treacherous morning can ever steal him again. Then the dream splashes, they are still unseparated, the scenery splotches with black spots, his eyelids flutter, he still has his brother, he is still holding— he is still— he is still— he is once again gripping the emptiness within his fists in the dull grey light.

Alone.

The image morphs into a gathering of trees leaning back to scream at the heavens, veins cracking over sunburnt skin in the space between night and sunrise. A shrieking whistle is followed by another, then another, and they greet the new day in chorus as spring calls forth color from the earth and a lemon glow drips around the edges of the feathery white dragons above.

The cold breath of dawn is good for practice. He flushes the lingering weariness from his hair and grabs his bow.

Calloused fingers chafe against the handgrip— scarlet bindings he replaced with cream; the black ones remain untouched. He nocks an arrow and draws, lowering the bow, sighting the target, thinking.

_"Get a boat and ask them to take you across. This should be enough to cover your fare. I'll stick around for a few days in case you change your mind."_

His aim wavers. He misses.

" _If I don't see you by the end of the week, you're on your own."_

Another stretch. Another arrow.

_"So long, kiddo. Take care of yourself."_

This one hits.

For an archery set he hasn't touched in ages, he's doing quite well. The half-sized bow in his hands isn't his weapon of choice, from its range to its draw length to the style of bindings on its grip, but it was Otoñal's preferred type because it was the only one he was able to manage, and even then he rarely ever hit the target. He would have brought his favored longbow, if only it wasn't so bulky, if only this wasn't his first time venturing outside home, if only he didn't worry about losing more than he already has. His _daikyu_ he left in the cave for Haru's protection, along with a note explaining the situation with the rebels, although what use one fairylike human has for such a weapon is debatable.

Maybe he should have left a knife instead.

He wastes the rest of his arrows shooting into the mist and wastes the rest of the morning searching for them on the forest floor. He retrieves the third one from the base of the tree it burrowed in; it comes off with the slightest of tugs, but his foot slips and he finds himself contemplating the reddish tan of the mud sloshing around his black archery glove. He wipes the muck on an exposed prop root and resumes his search.

It's been nearly a day since the canoe landed on these shores, yet here he is, hiding in a forest again.

Where is Blackhead? He's supposed to be here— what is he going to do if the man left after all? If only Haru were here, he wouldn't be so helpless.

 _"Which way is Sendai?"_ he asked someone yesterday and the lady gave him a strange look.

 _"Do you mean,"_ she rephrased his question, _"which way is the airport?"_

No, that wasn't what he meant, but he nodded anyway and listened to the directions that made no sense to him. And now he is stuck here, as lost as he was yesterday, and if he doesn't find Blackhead or think of a plan, he'll still be lost tomorrow.

* * *

The bow gives in and cracks eventually, too old to last the journey after all. He lays it in its final resting place by a tree and contemplates his options. It's either go back or go forward. Go back and he's right where he started, still alone, still lost. Forward and there's so many people and a world so strange it might as well be the abode of monsters.

Fortunately, Blackhead shows up, gloriously drenched in the afternoon rain. He flings off his soaked garments, spraying droplets on Origin's kimono as lightning pounces down on tiptoes from the grey fur pelts blanketing the sky.

"What brings you here?" the man asks, sneezing.

"I had to," is Origin's answer, and this is the first time he ever says this to another soul— "I don't want be afraid anymore."

"So you left."

He nods once.

"Good. That's a start."

Blackhead makes him change into a t-shirt and jeans— _modern_ fashion, as he calls it— in lieu of the kimono he took to wearing once the feathers shrunk into faded marks and could no longer cover him up. These pants are tight. He dislikes the way the coarse fabric rubs into his flesh.

"Where we go to?" he inquires as they walk down streets made of uninterrupted gray rock, surrounded by flat-roofed buildings that look nothing like the huts in the island he came from. He watches the covered wagons— the _cars_ — converge and diverge at forks in the endlessly winding road.

"We're getting dinner," his companion explains.

The farther they go from the beach, the more confusing this place gets. There are flashing lights shaped like humans and huge signs bigger than people and children balancing on two-wheeled skeleton beasts of burden. Blackhead turns sharply and Origin slams into an invisible barrier.

"Watch where you're going," the man guarding the entrance warns him.

He rubs his nose, stupefied. A child giggles. Others are staring at him with concerned looks. What a dangerous place this must be for its inhabitants to have to navigate through unseen barriers.

"You alright, kid?"

He's not a kid. The kids are doing better than he is. None of the people walking by have any problems getting past. He is not alright. He is confused.

He looks closely and finds the handles of what appears to be a transparent door. "The wall… is glass?"

"Yeah, I forgot to mention that," his companion drawls, "so be careful."

Blackhead leads him inside the glass room filled with round tables. They sit down and he tells Origin to choose something from a four-page list.

"Fish or chicken," Origin decides.

"They're all fish and chicken. Pick a dish."

He points to the only two pictures he recognizes. Blackhead nods and quickly summons one of the uniformed servants, who writes down his instructions. Once the servant is dismissed, he starts typing on his phone.

With nothing to do, Origin scans the room, wondering. The ceiling glows with bars of what resemble flameless oil lamps. He peers around the low wall-table to see where they keep the fireplace for roasting the meat and finds none. He can't even smell any smoke. His senses flood with the sounds of things tinkling and clinking and the squeals of children and the clack of shoes propped on tiny poles and too many unnamable scents. After a prolonged wait, the servant returns.

The first thing he notices on the tray is green. There's snow in it, he notes with wonder, inspecting the strange creamy liquid with fruit slices on top and accidentally tipping some of it out of the semi-spherical glass housing the concoction. Blackhead chuckles and sucks some kind of bubbly yellow juice through a slender tube and passes him a piece of what looks like square-shaped brown mochi with pieces of nuts on top.

"It's a brownie. I thought you'd like that."

It's delicious. It doesn't taste like a rice cake at all.

His favorite part of the meal is the soft, white, sweet, cold thing in a cup with dark swirls of syrup on top that is called a _chocolate sundae_.

"So?" queries Blackhead, quickly wiping the corners of his mouth with a paper-cloth as thin as a leaf. He crumples it and tosses it on the table. "Where are you going?"

It takes him a while to answer. Where is he going? He's going to Sendai to see his brother. He does not know where Sendai is.

"I know someone."

"Oh?"

 _Yuzuru_ _Hanyu_ , he nearly says, but stops himself. No, not him. He could mention Haru, but the last he saw him, Haru was sound asleep inside a cave. Instead he blurts out the only other name that comes to mind.

"Javier Fernandez."

"The guy last summer with the same name as the football player?"

"He's a skater."

"Oh."

"Look!" someone gasps, "It's Fernandez-senshu!"

" _That_ guy?" Blackhead gapes at the colored screen that looks like a giant version of the smartphones Haru would steal. Origin's head whips around to face the _terebi_ , and there they are, his friend and his brother, smiling like they just conquered the summit of a mountain, sending fond messages to each other from across the ocean.

"You don't say… that other kid looks exactly like you," comments Blackhead, staring back and forth between him and the TV. He rubs the stubble on his chin. "No wonder that Spaniard was so fond of you. Are you sure he's not a long-lost twin or something?"

"I—" Origin tries but can't get the right words out, so he takes a big scoop of sundae and plops it in his mouth and bites down hard, trapping the spoon and the cold between his teeth. Some of the freeze climbs up his head and stays there, kicking and punching, squeezing off whatever he was going to say. One day, when he's found his brother and Haru and Javier, he'll tell the whole truth. Now is not the time for that.

"I bet he's busy with post-Olympic interviews and stuff, but I'll see if I can contact him." The man empties his glass in a single swallow. "In the meantime, you got a lot of work to do."

At Origin's questioning glance, Blackhead claps his thick hands on his shoulders, giving him a gentle shake. "You gotta learn how to survive in this world, kid. Don't make me regret saving you back there."

He's talking about the earthquake.

"Here. Take this with you." Blackhead places a device in his hand that resembles the phones in the camp but which folds in half like a clamshell and has colors. "If you hear it ring, press this button. If you need help, press this one, and then this, and when you hear my voice, just answer."

Blackhead drills him until he understands how it works. With a little more confidence than earlier, Origin sets out to overcome the challenge before him: a monstrous building larger than twenty huts, full of things, people, and _glass_. He follows the line moving through the entrance and gets in successfully this time.

What he doesn't expect is to find massive stockpiles of wares inside. Everywhere he turns is occupied by a dizzying array of items for sale and enough buyers to fill a village. The interior seems to be lit up by a hundred moons, like the flashlights in the camp. There are lots of voices talking all at once. He moves around the shops carefully, wary of unseen obstacles which, once he knows what to look for, lose their power to hide.

He sees rows of food in glass cases lined with shelves, dshops selling toys and clothes and footwear and perfume bottles and different flavors of tea. Moving stairs rise and fall like waterless waterfalls only to disappear at the next floor, yet the cascade of steps never runs out. Doors slide open at the press of a button. Tiny people dance in a box. A gold cat statue waves at him. Rows of timepieces lie waiting for their new owners, next to the thinnest jewelry he has ever seen. He sees a writing instrument which, instead of an inkbrush, is a colored stick shaped like a reed with a very thin point that neither spills ink nor lets it dry out.

Someone inserts a coin in a slot and a metal can falls out. The girl in a pink sweater tugs at something on the lid and drinks the liquid inside. Huge paintings drape from ceiling to floor against walls carved seamlessly out of flat planes of rock. He's been walking for what must be an hour yet still hasn't reached the full length and width of this building. Divided into so many sections, it really is like a village inside, and about as spacious as the winding caverns.

He stops before a mirror larger than any handheld one in the camp, like an upright lake reflecting him in uncanny detail. He waves his fingers at the image waving back. The room itself begins to speak, and a strange kind of shamisen plays loud enough to fill the enormous structure while some lady sings in a language he's only heard a few times from two foreigners in the camp. The sound floats out of the walls and ceilings from all directions. It must be magic, he decides, thoroughly baffled.

And then he sees his brother.

—who is not his brother, just a life-sized painting on thick paper, brilliant eyes and kind smile reproduced in achingly vivid detail, including two cheek freckles that weren't present before. He knows this because he sees his brother everyday in his reflection, and that is the only chance he gets, and he hates his reflection as much as he loves it, because it's all he has left.

Until now.

 _Hello_ , he greets the copy, and it greets him back, too mute to be real. He drags himself away, feeling the threads of himself pull and strangle, and when he turns around for another glance, the image of his brother is swallowed up by a sea of useless things and shoppers trampling all over the space between them, until the whole tapestry snaps and his brother's voice fades into deafening silence. He doesn't look back again.

The noise of the scattered crowd pulls him along. He wants to break away; he wants to run, down to the beach, across the ocean, toward the forest, up the mountains, back home. He hates the tripping beat of his heart.

This strange new world full of strange new things— how did Otoñal react when he first saw this? Was he overwhelmed? Excited? Terrified? Lonely? He can only wonder.

The toilet confounds him. He knows how a faucet works, but this time the water pours out without him twisting anything. He scoots around the sink in surprise, and hot air starts blowing from a box in the wall. He concludes that either machines are amazing and powerful creatures or there are indeed _youkai_ hiding within these walls. His phone rings, startling him, and it is only by forcing himself to calm down that he remembers the right buttons to press.

Before long Blackhead appears behind him in the mirror, cackling, and leads him to the entrance of a bewildering maze that seems to be a market full of items stacked neatly into shelves.

"Go on," he says. "See what it's like. Just be careful not to break anything. I'll catch up to you later."

A moments' hesitation flits by and he summons the resolve to step courageously through the entrance. This foreign and confusing world is his brother's, and Javier's, and even Haru's. He refuses to back down. Like a warrior in a battlefield, he shall forge his own path through this wilderness.

He gets in and gets lost in the garden, wondering how many people it would take to consume all these heaps of vegetables before they rot. Everyone's pushing a cart or carrying a basket, so he searches the area for one to borrow. There are glass doors stacked with juice and milk, fish inside a can, fruits he's never seen in his life. Hundreds of bottles of all shapes and sizes. Animals in boxes of human food. And how many different ways are there to store a piece of chicken? Asking directions only confuses him further; it takes him forever to locate the rice.

He doesn't take anything, preferring to observe the movements of hundreds of feet clacking on shiny floors kept impossibly white. He reaches the section for flavorings and finds himself once again bewildered by the dozens of options written in both Japanese and English, and at least three other languages he can't decipher. Many of the names read like a secret code; what could _napukin_ possibly mean, and why does the label instruct him to whisper?

Wherever he turns too many people jostle elbow to elbow, pushing small wagons loaded with supplies. He holds his basket close, tightening his grip on the handle like a weapon until his companion finds him.

Blackhead takes one look at his empty basket and clucks his tongue. He gestures to his own cart, which is nearly half-full. "Looks like someone needs to learn how to go shopping."

What seems like aimless wandering takes them to dried fruits and canned beans and several more items whose purpose Origin cannot fathom. They line up to pay for the goods, passing by small tubs of different flavors of _ice_ _cream_ that Blackhead claims is similar to the _sundae_ he just ate. Blackhead slides the glass cover aside and tells him to stick his hand in. He does and the sudden chill that bites his fingers make his eyes widen in amazement. The magic of this place can even control indoor weather. He pulls his hand out and hurriedly slides the cover back, trapping the cold within the huge frost-filled chest. It's just like the lake, he realizes, instantly missing that skating spot that stayed frozen even in the withering heat of summer.

On their way out, Blackhead shows him the pens where the cars are resting. There are a hundred lights here, too, and a forest of vehicles, except he can tell apart trees yet he cannot read the pillars' perfect blankness.

Their next meal is a plate of steaming dumplings. They share a room that night, and the morning after they cross over to the mainland.

The trip to Fukuoka takes several hours. He spends the time watching the endless blueness rippling around the ferry, the trough of waves fanning out behind them, the wet hiss of seaspray and the restless clamor of hungry seabirds, the eternity of sky uncut by mountains. The boat touches down on sand and grit. He wobbles off deck, nearly stumbling. Blackhead takes him to the room he's renting for a month, and after a week he successfully contacts Javier.

"Told him it was urgent. He said he'll drop by as soon as he can to pick you up," Blackhead informs him. "The guy sounded really busy, though."

Javier must be working like everyone else he's met here, and he doesn't want to cause any more trouble, so Origin nods and prepares to wait a few more days. He needs a job if he wants to eat, and according to his companion, he needs to learn something other than hunting and flute-playing to pay for a decent meal. He's flipping mini pancakes on a stove contemplating the large-scale fishing methods he saw on TV the other night when a flurry of snowflakes makes its presence known at their doorstep.

"Hi, Ori!" Haru greets him, passing him a familiar bow and quiver which he claims to have hid in a safe place somewhere before Origin can even take his apron off. "Javi couldn't make it here fast enough. He sent me instead."

Spain is far away, he says, and unlike Haru, who doesn't need to ask permission to ride an airplane, it will take at least a couple of weeks for Javier to fly to Japan.

"How is he?"

"Javi? He has a lot of commitments to attend to, but he's doing great!" Haru replies, unusually cheerful. Reuniting with Javier must have done wonders for him.

The moment Haru spots the mixture bubbling on the frying pan, it's the end of breakfast. There go the little suns one by one, straight into Haru's belly.

"Don't eat all of them!" Origin warns, right when Blackhead pokes though the door with his usual cup of thrice-daily black coffee. He takes one look at their unexpected visitor and frowns.

"More lookalikes? Great. I bet this one skates too?" he remarks, studying Haru from head to toe with that look he reserves for malfunctioning engines in need of repair.

"Yup!"

"Hmmm… at least he doesn't have feathers."

"Hello!"

"Not sure I like his taste in clothes."

"My name's Haru!"

"This your twin? No, he can't be. He's too young."

"Nice to meet you!"

"He's a minor, isn't he?" Blackhead asks, ignoring the teenage-looking boy who is older than Origin is.

"I'm twenty-three!" Haru corrects him.

Blackhead stares at his pink-clothed form in disbelief. "Huhhh… well, if you say so," he concedes at last. Turning to Origin, who has kept silent throughout this exchange, he announces that the time has come for them to part ways. He takes a small but thick card from his pocket, with his picture and some words and numbers written on it.

"Yajiri Daghishat. That's my name."

"Dag-hi-shat," Origin enunciates, careful to get it right.

"It translates to _full of darkness_. Or in simpler terms, _black_."

 _Yajiri_. _Daghishat_. "Your real name mean _black_ _arrowhead?"_

Blackhead chuckles, flipping his messy sun-hued mane. "Where do you think I got my nickname? From my hair?"

"I thought it because of tattoo," Origin grumbles.

"Sorry to disappoint you, kid. It was never _that_ complicated."

Origin peruses the card, and Black Arrowhead points to his contact information. "Here's my number. Call me anytime. I'd be glad to hear from you, so long as the bosses haven't killed me yet."

"Thank you," he says, two words and a thousand more.

"So? What's your plan?"

"Haru and me waits for Javier together."

"Sounds good. You watch over him, okay?" Black Arrowhead glances over to Haru before patting Origin's shoulder one last time.

"Okay!" Haru promises, leaning closer and pulling Origin's braid without remorse.

He'll save the scolding for later. He spares Haru a split-second glare and gets a catlike scrunch in return. Black Arrowhead laughs.

"Please don't die," is his final plea as he thanks the man again for the many unrepayable things he's done for him.

His mentor snorts and tugs his blue cap on. "See you, kid," he bids farewell and vanishes into the hollows of the city.

* * *

And so he is left with this boy who looks six years his junior, staring cross-eyed down his nose, waiting for the moment of opportunity to catch a flying blue stick in a jar.

"Javi's flight to Narita will be twelve days from now. What will we do in the meantime?" Haru asks, crouching stealthily. He pounces, jar in hand, but miscalculates; the dragonfly whizzes away at the last second and hovers across the room. Origin swats at the air and the blur of wings flies toward the window. The frantic beating against the pane is irritating. He moves to open the door.

"Ah— no wait!" cries Haru. He rushes to the window and sneaks up on his target but looks unsure how to trap it without accidentally harming its wings. At last he changes tactics and catches it with a towel.

Now the dragonfly's wild buzzing is confined to a jar. Origin doesn't think he enjoys that either.

"I want to see Otoñal."

Haru perks up. "We're going to Sendai?"

He blinks. Yes. They're going to Sendai.

Haru finds him a looser pair of pants and a belt. He redoes his braid. The dragonfly slingshots back home, unbothered.

They go to Sendai; Haru produces a wad of cash and a stiff card which he calls _the key to everything,_ proclaims himself a "cosplayer" and takes Origin to a very, very long car shaped like a snake.

This, Haru explains, is a _train_.

A swipe or two of Haru's magic card lets them through. They find seats onboard and Haru points to a map overhead and tells him about important buildings and places along the way. And then they are riding a car, and they are walking, and they are eating, and all this time Origin does his best to process all the sights and smells and noises and silences speeding by, until finally Haru leads him down a street to the Hanyu residence.

"Your brother's inside."

He nods. His brother's inside.

Now what?

He's so close, and it's been so long, and his brother is right here with neither sea nor mountain to separate them. Just a wall, just a window, just a door.

But the door is shut and whatever material the window is made of is not see-through, and the wall is too high for him to climb over. He leans his bow on his shoulder, feeling the strain in his arms from keeping the bamboo tip from knocking into the concrete roads on the way here. Like Haru predicted, his weapon has proven useless against Honshu's metal monsters. He only insisted on bringing it because he couldn't bear to wander around the country defenseless.

It's of no help now.

"Maybe you should wait," Haru advises.

"No. I have to see him. Even if we don't talk. I just need to see him."

Haru sends him a knowing look. "Then maybe you should ring the doorbell."

He stares at the door. It's a beautiful door. Haru waits for him to do something and he waits for something to happen.

"Well?"

The door is solid and ominous. He can't bring himself to touch it. This is not what he pictured in his mind when he fled the shores of his island home.

"Ori, the button is right here."

His finger hovers, frozen. How much of a man is made up of memories? What parts of his twin can he still recognize when they finally meet?

 _Hello_ , he whispers to the door. _Please_ _open_.

The door opens.

 _Wait_ , he panics, heart leaping up his throat, _you can't open yet._

It happens too quick for him to decide whether to run or to remain in place. In front of him appears a lady in a purple dress. He feels an urgent nudge at his side, prompting him to greet her. His eyes whirl around and Haru has predictably vanished.

He looks down, his last defense, then up. Bravely.

"Hello. I'm looking for—"

"Yuzu?" she gasps, squinting hard. She is not much older than he is. "Yuzu? Who-who are you—?"

The pounding chokes off his air. "I'm looking for Hanyu Yuzuru," he repeats, voice raspier all of a sudden. "I'm his brother."

* * *

A DNA test is something people do when a stranger shows up with the same face and the same height and claims to be a long-lost brother. Plastic surgery is something that lets people share the same face in the first place. Orange juice is better than Coca-cola. These are three things Origin learns this afternoon.

He also discovers that different countries have different _time zones_ , that Madrid— which is where Javier lives— is much, much, much farther away from Sendai than the distance between here and Tsushima, and that even through a videocall, Javier's cat truly does look very fat. The creature called Effie purrs in Javi's lap, distracting most of them from the bowl Origin spies floating in the kitchen.

Javier frowns in suspicion, also noticing the pair of utensils suspended in the air. "Is that—" he peers closer, causing Otoñal to lean backward. "Haru!" he calls to the flying chopsticks.

One blink and the chopsticks are flying no longer.

Otoñal lets out a startled gasp. His sister screams.

"Buenas noches, Señor Javi!" Haru waves to the laptop.

A spoon clatters on the floor. "And who are _you?_ " demands Otoñal's mother, who has just come in from the kitchen.

"My name is Yutsuru! You can call me Haru! Pleased to meet you!" he greets the room's occupants, whose expressions are muddled with awe and horror.

"Yuushuu, did Haru eat too much chocolate lately?" Javi's voice rings from the speakers.

Otoñal's head snaps back to the laptop screen. "You call him _Yuushuu_?"

"How many Yuzus are there?" asks Otoñal's sister, and Javier shrugs.

"It's a long story. Haru can explain," he says, indicating the boy currently stuffing his mouth with noodles.

"Hey, you didn't ask permission," Origin reprimands Haru, feeling his ears flush hot on behalf of the other's shameless manners.

"Sorry, Yuzu," says Javier. "Haru has a crazy appetite for ramen. He can eat two whole boxes in a week."

"And he can make snowflakes?"

"And he can turn invisible?"

"And he dresses like a fairy?"

"He's not a fairy," Javier clarifies to the three puzzled occupants of the dining room. "At least, he's not a real one."

Otoñal is the first to react. "Then, he is an AI robot?"

"I'm not," Haru finally addresses them. The ramen is finally gone as well.

He begins his tale with a war story. Otoñal's sister steps out for a minute and when she comes back there's a plate of round and sweet bread in her hands. Otoñal seems to understand what Haru says, although his brows knot from time to time in disbelief.

"I must be dreaming," he laughs. "That sound like science fiction anime."

"It _does_ , right? Believe me, I was really confused at first," Javier admits.

Origin hears "genetic engineering" and "DNA manipulation" and many things too confusing to remember, save the fact that Haru is related to them like an unaging older brother and that it is no coincidence that they share the same face.

"I don't think the ones behind the cloning projects know about the two of you," Haru continues. "They weren't able to track you down, and even if they did, most of their records have been destroyed already. It might have been another organization that kidnapped your mother. She was probably an illegal recruit, and if she made it to Tsushima, they must have been planning to take her to South Korea and sell her off."

"Why?" Origin can't help but ask.

It's Otoñal's sister who answers his question. "In the 1990s, South Korea's economy was progressing faster than before, and their citizens were able to find better jobs. Human trafficking victims from other countries like Russia and South East Asia replaced most of the Korean women in the bars and military entertainment centers."

"Do you think the yakuza may be involved in this?" Javi asks, directing his question to Haru. "There's at least one syndicate in Nagasaki that deals in that sort of shady business. And the group we encountered in Tsushima definitely has connections to the _Dojin_ _Kai_ of Fukuoka."

"I don't know. I don't believe the organization intended for this to happen. It could have been a coincidence."

"Our mother," Origin says, feeling the tragedy of her life gnaw into his memories of her quiet, smiling face, "she suffered." He glances at his brother, who doesn't care, doesn't know, doesn't care.

" _Our_ mother," he repeats, voice brittle, willing Otoñal to hear. His twin looks away in deep thought. He doesn't know her. He doesn't. His brother doesn't know his own mother, doesn't know his mountains, his forests, his seas.

"Yuushuu, you okay?" Javier asks with that look full of concern that makes him want to dive through the screen and hug him and weep. He forces a nod, because Javier does know— he knows his caves, his birds, his shrine, his lake. Javier knows his tub boat, he knows the crevice where he stores his supply of flint, he knows the steps built through the underground tunnels, he knows how a bamboo flute echoes against cavern walls in the firelight.

"Mother was very young when give birth," he says, fighting the rising tide of sorrow. "Healer said that what make her very sick for many years. Because twins bring bad luck, and especially, especially baby has no spirit until it cry and I too long before I start crying, so it very bad sign. But she never let them killing us, even if she suffer bad luck, she accepts. I think if we not twins they don't sacrifice my brother. They pick him so they can have sea dragon blessing and also remove all bad luck."

"Infanticide was common all over Japan even up to the Edo Period," Otoñal tells him in Japanese. "If your story is true, I have another reason to be thankful I'm still alive today."

They discuss a little more, and Javier and Haru add their thoughts about wars, legends, and traders before they move to other topics. It seems that Javier and his twin have not seen each other since the Olympics, and tonight they talk about the experience again.

"Congratulations," he tells Javier. "You win medal like you promise."

"Thank you, Yuushuu." Javier's smile is so wide and his eyes are sparkling. "Ah, hold on, hold on. I have something you'll like." He reaches down and picks up a white tiger cub. "It's Soohorang! I promised I'd get you a special plushie, remember?"

"Soohorang?"

"I think it's a mythological tiger in Korea? Bae-something."

" _Baekho_ ," Otoñal supplies. "In Japan we call him _Byakko_."

Byakko. Guardian of the West. The representation of Autumn among the Four Great Beasts. But this one is smiling.

"Byakko… where did I hear that? Ah!" exclaims Javier, snapping his fingers, "there was this anime you told me about…"

The conversation goes on between the two Olympic medalists. He understands none of it. Otoñal's mother and sister leave, and then it's his turn to talk to Javier.

"I'm sorry I left you," Javier apologizes. "I've been looking up everything I could about that island, and those drug dealers, tribes nearby, anything useful. Believe me, I didn't forget you, I really was planning to go back, I swear—"

Origin shakes his head. "It's alright. You ask me to go with you, but I not ready yet. I need to think much, talk to Haru before really can decide. Better I come here now."

Javier's expression brightens.

"So what have you been doing since I left? And how'd you like this technology? Not too strange, I hope?"

"Not very bad," he replies, at the exact moment Haru decides to perch on his shoulder.

"Ori's scared of alarm clocks!"

" _Haru!_ " Origin seethes, pushing the troublemaker off.

"He is?"

"Yup!"

"No."

"Yes, you are!"

"No."

"Javi hates alarm clocks, too!"

"Haru, you're louder than _any_ alarm clock I've ever seen," Javier chides him.

"You're louder when you snore!"

"And how would you know—"

"I don't sleep, remember?"

And then Javi's frowning, and Haru's pouting, and they both burst into laughter. With Javier around, and Haru making ice cream with his fingers, everything seems alright once again.

If only for a moment.

* * *

He stays in Sendai and tries to acquaint himself with this world, spending his days marveling at every new wonder of technology, from the _mi-cro-wave_ to the _aircon_. The ones that talk are the strangest of all.

He stays and waits and hopes. The identity test takes time before they get results, and it pains him that whether he'll be called brother or not depends on markings on a sheet of paper. Still, his brother's family welcomes him as if he were their own, which he is not, and every corner taunts him with the sensation of being an intruder.

 _Is it worth it,_ he wonders, _to cling to memories of someone who doesn't remember you?_

But he has nothing holding him back to his previous home and no one to return to and he promised he would try.

He learns how to choose between hot and cold water from a shower, sometimes drawing cliffs and waves into the soap foam spreading like clouds on the beautiful marbled rock floor with his toes. He inspects the faded patterns on his skin that so long have held him captive, now nothing more than darker colored patches that occasionally itch without the creams Otoñal's mother provided. When he steps out, the room smells of herbs and flowers.

"Javier, are you sad you only get bronze at Olympics?" he asks, three sunsets after they lend him a spare room and a bed.

"Hmm… I was at first. You see, I worked so very hard all season and I expected better. But then I realized my performance simply wasn't good enough."

"So if someone good enough, he not will make mistake."

Javier thinks a while before replying, "No. If you're good enough, you'll show them a performance you can be proud of."

"But what if you might not have medal?"

"That's the hard part," he admits, rubbing his beard like Origin often saw him do in the mountains. "Look, it's like this. I really wish I hadn't popped that Sal in the free. But even if the program didn't turn out exactly the way I wanted, I can be proud of it. Sure, I could have done better. Maybe I should have tried to land the Salchow, maybe I should have been more careful with the take-off, maybe I shouldn't have been so worried I'd fall. But I can't keep blaming myself. I did the best I could, and that's what counts."

Javier asks him how much of his stories Otoñal recognizes. He asks Javier how it felt not to podium at Worlds.

"Some days it just works out. Some days it just doesn't. What matters is that you fight through those days," Javier advises.

When the call is over, he passes the device to Haru and looks for the singing box called a radio. Yesterday, Otoñal's father taught him how to use it and he found a number— a _station_ — that plays instruments like the shamisen and koto and shinobue instead of the ugly, painful noises of metals and rocks.

He finds his brother listening to his own favorite songs from the round things he sticks in his ears, relieved that even now, his whole soul pours out whenever he hears music. At least, even with his past sealed away, that part remains unchanged.

"Hello," he says when his twin finally looks in his direction.

Otoñal greets him enthusiastically. "I'll show you how to use a PSP later," he offers. "It's fun."

His mumbled _thank_ _you_ is tense and awkward. "Can I— can I call you 'Nyal' like before... or should I call you 'Yuzu' now?"

"Anything you want… uh, _onii_ - _san_."

That doesn't sound right either.

"Um," he says. There are nine years worth of things he longs to tell his brother, but the journey across the ocean seems to have robbed him of them. He doesn't trust his own voice. He needs a mountain to climb. He needs a flute. He needs prey to shoot down.

Otoñal clears his throat. "There's something I wanted to show you."

His twin gestures to the leather case on the table.

"When I was found, there was a bow tied to my clothes. I wondered why it looked different from the standard _hankyu_. I researched about Tsushima but there weren't any craftsmen making bows with that design. The closest match is a hybrid with a Korean _Gakgung_ or a Chinese _Manchu_."

Otoñal carefully lifts the lid of the case, revealing a preserved half-bow that bears silent testimony to his heritage, just like the one he owned, except this one is oiled and sanded and his is broken.

If his twin kept this, that means he was trying to find himself too.

He inspects the bow. It's the exact same one slung across Otoñal's shoulder on that fateful day nine years ago. "This was yours, Nyal. You liked archery but you were no good. You loved music. And dancing. We used to skate together when we were younger, remember?"

He begs and he begs and he begs and he begs, silently. He pleads and he pleads and he pleads. His desperation is a child on a cliff drawing faces in the stars, making an extra set of footprints in the sand to keep him company as he listens to echoes of voices drowning in the garbled emptiness of the sea.

"I remember the ice," Otoñal says, "and voices in the wind. That's all."

Cold dread slaps its spiked claws against his face. There is no sign that his twin recognizes him.

He is really, truly, forgotten.

It shouldn't hurt.

It shouldn't _hurt_.

He draws back, suddenly afraid, suddenly misplaced. Everything here is wrong. He shouldn't have dared. He has to leave— he has to find the way out of this cruel world before it attacks him. He excuses himself and steps outside for fresh air, flinching when the door slams shut like jaws snapping.

"Are you okay?"

Haru takes a long look at him and offers him a flower. "Cheer up. Everything will be alright," he promises, and, just like in days past when Origin was alone and a fairylike creature appeared in a storm of spring snowflakes speaking of magical worlds and promises of spring, Origin wants to believe him.

But Haru is not a fairy. He doesn't know the things fairies should know, he doesn't know the future, he doesn't know how to wait, he doesn't know what this shade of loss feels like.

"Stop lying."

Haru's fingers falter. "Huh? I'm not—"

He shoves the flower away, throwing his remaining anger at Haru. All of it. "Nothing is alright. You know that." He flees with heavy breaths and heavy knees and the force of falling mountains crushing his head, leaving Haru and the Hanyus behind.

* * *

The streets are bursting with the noise of solitude. There are people everywhere, in the caravan of vehicles, in the sidewalks, people, all splitting up and coming together in their own directions, a multitude of strangers, ignoring. Two women whose faces are mirror images of each other stroll past a bakery, laughing as they walk by. They look happy, like nothing's wrong in the world, like they're not sentenced to a lifetime of doom.

 _Why,_ he wonders.

_Why aren't you cursed?_

Their giggles ring cruelly in his ear long after they're gone. It is unfair.

 _"The twin that comes out first is the evil one,"_ he remembers telling Javier months ago.

 _"Did your mother believe that?"_ Javier asked, and he could not answer.

No, his mother didn't. Not even on her dying bed. _You're precious to me,_ she told them, _no matter what anyone says._

Then what happened to Otoñal, what happened to the village, the reason they were separated— whose fault was that? If the firstborn twin is not a malevolent spirit in disguise, if he isn't the one to blame, then why did all this misfortune befall them?

He thinks, and he thinks, and he thinks. Were the elders mistaken? Whose fault was it, if not his own?

If he didn't dare his brother to skate on the lake when they were children…

If he knew about the healing river when his mother was gasping her final breaths…

If he didn't fall that day, if he wasn't too scared to try to escape…

If he was smarter, if he was stronger, if he was a better son, and a better brother, and a better person…

His soles scrape the concrete and burn. He walks, and he walks, and he walks further still. There's a crowd gathering by the roadside. Flaring lights and police mark the gruesome site of a car accident.

_"Was he drunk?"_

_"No, they say the driver had a stroke. Underlying medical condition."_

_"And that's why he crashed into the taxi in front."_

_"How unfortunate."_

_"Maybe today was an unlucky day for him."_

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Someone runs toward him, grasping a pinwheel in her tiny fingers. It's a little girl wearing pink and pigtails. She gawks at him.

"Hanyu-senshu?"

Her voice takes him to _before_ , to getting mistaken for his twin over and over again, until Otoñal decided to cut his hair and he let his grow past his shoulders. He dips his head now, letting his curtain of thick black locks shield him from her eyes.

"That's not him. Hanyu-senshu doesn't have long hair," says a man in a suit and tie whom Origin assumes to be her father. He isn't sure. He never had one.

They walk to the street crossing. The father grips his child's hand and safely guides her to the other side.

He watches their figures fade as the warning light reverts to crimson. He stops, turns back, and realizes how lost he is. Which way is the Hanyu house? And which way is out of here?

There's a path with birds. He chooses that direction to walk in.

Furious horns explode behind him. He hears sparrows cry. The sun bakes the sky into the color of persimmons, and his newly-bought shoes come to a halt. There is Haru, wingless by choice, standing before him.

Haru, who could have had his wings back in exchange for his memories. He wouldn't have lost them if he wasn't so reckless, but then he wouldn't have met Javier. And he couldn't have saved Otoñal if he wasn't on the run, and he wouldn't be awake now if not for the same earthquake that destroyed Origin's village, Otoñal's training rink, and thousands of houses.

His thoughts pause. Something isn't right.

That earthquake that ruined East Japan couldn't have been punishment for something _he_ did wrong.

And if Haru's right, the back-grey spikes that once tortured his skin aren't either.

Then maybe his mother's death isn't his fault.

Or what they did to his brother.

Maybe sometimes, bad things just happen.

The wind changes, and a flapping rush takes to the sky like arrows, leaving traces of feathers and nothing more.

"I'm not cursed," he says with sudden breathstealing clarity.

"No," Haru agrees. "You are not."

He is not.

His leg trembles.

The air feels light on his featherless shoulders. He fumbles for thoughts.

"What are you doing here?"

"You left your bow and arrows."

He takes the quiver with shaking hands, a treasure. Gripping the laminated bamboo, it strikes him that this piece of wood is the only thing he has left of the world he once belonged to.

His fingers clench harder. At least he has this.

"Are you coming home now?"

He slings the quiver over his neck. "It's _his_ home. Not _mine_."

They walk. Haru thinks. Origin welcomes this silence.

As they turn the corner Haru says, "It's his home, but it can be yours too."

He snorts. Such empty words.

"I think, home is where you find what matters to you the most. If your brother is the most precious thing in the world, then wherever he lives can be home to you."

He grinds his palms into both eyes, pushing the salt heat back where they won't cause him trouble. He kicks a pebble far away.

"Where is yours?" he croaks at last, reaching the very end of the end of all fight he has left.

"My home is the sky," Haru declares, raising his gaze to the horizon like the bird he was named after, "and my friends."

The skyline burns with the same colors of a shrine withering to ashes. He closes his eyes and sees the inescapable tethers of darkness.

"My home is gone."

* * *

When he returns, Otoñal is on a videocall with Javier again.

_"Why didn't you tell me, Javi?"_

_"Well, at first you were preparing for the Olympics. I didn't want to distract you. And afterward— I know you. You'd have gone there yourself, broken ankle and all. I didn't think it was safe to venture back there without a plan. It's a dangerous place, you know, and it's not just the yakuzas and those guys who tried to kill me."_

_"But if he really my family, I should know."_

_"I'm sorry, Yuzu. Please forgive me. The plan was to get help from authorities and track him down this summer when the ice shows were done. I know I could have told you sooner, but somehow I just kept postponing it. I know this isn't a good excuse. I apologize."_

_"Is that why you ask me after Olympics, if I remember? You want to tell me that day?"_

_"Yeah… I was hoping to. But then you said you forgot everything and wanted to move on. I didn't know how to tell you the truth."_

_"I still forget. He really look like my twin, but I don't know him."_

Origin turns away, unable to listen. He clutches the earthquake building in his chest, wanting to rip it free forever. His nails bite the fabric and come away with nothing.

Dinner is a strange white silence. They have beef's tongue, a delicacy, and he's eaten more meat in three days than in three weeks in the forest. He glares at his chopsticks, watching through tired eyelids as the indoor light makes the rice on his plate glow. His twin says goodnight to him with a smile.

Time flows strangely here. Evening spans its gaze across the city and still the huge roads do not rest, the TVs are awake, there is no real darkness. Though he and Otoñal's mother wake up at dawn, his brother's day starts at noon, coming to an end only at the strike of midnight. He knows Haru spends a lot of time with Otoñal when the rest of the household is asleep. _He_ spends a lot of time outside, watching ants feast on insect corpses.

Otoñal introduces him to RPGs, and the array of weapons and specialized attacks of the characters flashing through the battle scenarios give them enough to talk about until night falls the next day and they eat dinner and their own lonely thoughts and skirt the past that no longer belongs to them. Under pretend moons and concealed skies, the shadows on the wall are so sharp he can cut them out with a knife.

The musical noises take time to get used to. "What is that?" he asks, pointing to the instrument on TV that appears to be an oddly-shaped table lined with black and white strips being pressed down to make a sound.

"That," says Otoñal, "is a piano."

There's another sound, a strange shamisen playing crows and thunder and nothing he has ever heard before. "And that one?"

"A guitar."

Otoñal introduces him to his music library. He fits a silver band with two ear covers over his head. "Pick one," he instructs, "then click."

The one he chooses has an English title. _Oshiete oshiete yo_ , it begins, not so much a song as a whisper exploding into unhinged screaming.

 _Yurete yuganda sekai ni dandan boku wa_ _, s_ _ukitotte mienakunatte_ _,_ it wails, shrill and desolate, the screech of metal, knives scraping stone, the clanging of swords, begging _please don't find me, please don't look at me,_ _please just remember who I was, as brilliant as I used to be,_ and the world unravels with a single growl that shakes him to the core.

 _Wasurenaide_ , the voice shrieks. _Wasurenaide! Wasurenaide! Wasurenaide!_

 _I won't,_ he vows. _I won't forget you._

The final plea, _oboeteite boku no koto wo,_ makes him shiver. In this song, his brother speaks.

"That's a very good anime. Kaneki-kun's inner strength is amazing," Otoñal says with undisguised eagerness, and there is his brother sharing the starflashes of the universe with him all over again, even if this time it's nothing more than an anime about monsters he would rather not exist.

His ears stop hearing. Chimes of the past sway and tingle louder than ever, existing no where but in his head. This is the only place they can be real. He is the only one to witness their voices and colors, the only one left to carry their weight. He feels pieces of himself leak all over the floor, exhausted.

Otoñal forgot, but Origin couldn't, and that is the most unfair thing of all.

"Crying is good for the nervous system," his twin informs him, handing him a piece of— of tissue.

He stares at it dumbly, wondering what to do with it, until he feels a wetness slide down his neck.

His throat is too thick for thank yous.

"Specifically, it activates the parasympathetic nervous system to relieve stress, which helps you relax and feel better afterward."

He doesn't know what's a nervous system, but he recalls numerous times Otoñal broke down in sobs and he'd tell his younger brother to calm down and only succeed at making more tears fall. Sad, angry, or happy, his brother cried a lot when overcome with emotion. He wonders if there was someone to comfort him in his absence. He wonders how strong one needs to be to overcome the unending gnashing of grief.

He gets up and throws the tissue, and doesn't ask for another piece.

* * *

The test results leave everyone in a contemplative mood. Finally, there it is— written proof of their connection. Otoñal's father stores it with the rest of his files. Otoñal's mother pulls him into a warm embrace. His sister gifts him a watch with colorful birds on the rim. Haru forces him to ingest a giant bag of potato chips.

Otoñal approaches him with a plate of rice cakes. "Want snacks?" he offers.

The mochi is delicious, but he doesn't know what to talk about because the vibrant threads that once linked them heart to heart, finger to finger, hang limp in the breath-spaces between them, unrepaired and atrophied. He doesn't know if he should speak or listen, if his brother would hear or if he would understand. He doesn't know him. This person who once shared his home and his mother and his life— who still shares his face, and that is the only thing they know to be true about each other right now— is a stranger.

So they settle with the only other things they have in common: Javier and the ice. When he found Javier, they talked about nothing but Otoñal and skating, and now that he is reunited with his brother, their discussion revolves around skating and Javier.

"He told me stories about you. I took him to the caves and showed him the magic lake."

"So that's what he was up to last spring. I can't believe he never said a thing! Javi doesn't like secrets," his twin frowns.

"He kept begging me to show him the way out. I know he missed home very much. But I was a bad friend. I didn't help him."

"Sometimes people do wrong things when they're lonely," Otoñal says after a thoughtful pause. "I did, too. It must have been very hard for you."

"I kept going," he says, echoing Haru's words from back when Otoñal was still missing, and Origin still lost. Months have passed since then. And only a week ago he could never have imagined himself here, sharing a table with his twin, eating homemade rice cakes, and talking about _ge-og-ra-phy_ and natural disasters.

"Sometimes I see dead people in my sleep," Otoñal confesses.

He thinks of snow. He thinks of trees and houses kneeling in surrender and how unlucky he was to be in the right place at the wrong time.

"Me too," he says.

Otoñal asks him to sample his newest combination of marshmallows, peaches, strawberries, cinnamon, apples, melons, bananas, nuts, milk, and hot choco.

He tries a spoonful, licks his lips, and raises his eyes to his twin's expectant gaze.

"Well?"

"Maybe you should add cereal," he suggests, "and remove some fruits."

Otoñal considers the idea for a few moments and goes to find a box of cereal to experiment with. Another cup of chocolate floats in when his back is turned, minus the fruits and the nuts and the marshmallows and with no additional ingredients except familiar wriggling yellowish strands on top.

" _Choco_ - _ramen?_ "

"Yup. Tastes wonderful," Haru insists with a satisfied grin. "Want some?" he offers, and Origin shakes his head.

"Hey, where did all the cereal go?" they hear Otoñal's perplexed voice coming from the kitchen, but before Origin can say a word, the strange chocolate drink is safely resting on the edge of the table and Haru has already blinked out of sight.

* * *

His brother's fascination with knowledge is boundless, he soon finds out. He knows far more than the teachings of the elders and the methods of the village healers. He talks of worlds in a drop of water, skies beyond this sky, lands of fire and lands of ice. Several times a simple question leads to him narrating the lives of the nation's great heroes, from of one of the greatest archers in Japanese history, _kyujitsu_ master Awa Kenzo, who put up a dojo in Sendai a hundred years ago, to Date Masamune, the great daimyo of Sendai, the famous warlord Uesugi Kenshin, and other important people in the history of a country Origin knows very little about.

Otoñal's father drives him to a Zen garden and tells him even more stories, reminding him of the times when he was young and envious of his playmates, wishing he someone to call a father, too. Otoñal's mother… is not like his mother. She is strong in many ways, and he never sees her shed a tear or sigh. But she loves her adopted son just the same, and sometimes she surprises him by cooking the kinds of dishes he never tasted since his own mother passed away.

One day he receives a present in the form of a half-sized bow in the standard _yumi_ shape and a membership in a nearby dojo. Testing his new _hankyu_ , he draws the bowstring to his cheek and releases, taking note of the lighter draw weight. It's bound with red and white cloth— colors for joyful occasions, and there is indeed much reason for him to celebrate.

"Thank you," he says, accepting the token of goodwill.

He discovers that not all days have to be permeated with sorrow.

He spends the next month studying a map of Japan. He learns the different transport systems, the train stations, airports, bus terminals, ports. Haru accompanies him on these trips, treating the tour of the provinces like an adventure. With this knowledge, he can return to his home island, or other islands scattered throughout Tsushima whenever he chooses to. But for now…

Haru glances up from the video he's watching on the park bench. He does not sweat, but his movements seem more lethargic. With less trees, the sun's fire blasts the earth, unstoppable.

"Ori?"

For now, he'll stay.

"Let's go home early. There's a drama special that Otoñal wanted to watch."

Haru peers into his face with an inscrutable look. "Okay!" he smiles at last. "I'm hungry!"

"You're _always_ hungry."

"That's because I need more energy! I can't go sunbathing all the time!"

Origin sighs. "Come on, they're waiting. Nyal just texted me."

He inserts his phone in his pocket and Haru jumps to his feet. A flock of pigeons scream into formation and for once he's glad he doesn't need to bring a bow to shoot them for his next meal.

He lifts his eyes to the sky and spots a bear in the clouds with a brilliant silver lining. There's a honeypot beside it, he decides. Maybe later he'll have bread with honey for his snack.

"Tadaima," he says when he steps over the threshold, having changed from shoes to indoor slippers.

They welcome him home. He hurries to change and assist in the kitchen, basking in a different sort of warmth.

It's a different world from the one he's known all his life, but the heart of it is the same. The Hanyu family loves Otoñal unconditionally, and his gratitude pours forth in his efforts to honor their clan. He has sacrificed and suffered, perhaps more than Origin will ever know, but from tears and blood springs forth a legacy that will not be broken. He shines more brilliantly than ever, in ways far beyond what his mother or anyone else could have predicted.

In a city of trees and mountains across the barricade of the sea, his brother has found his own place. And, they assure him, there's always room for one more.

It's not quite the reunion he always hoped for, but it feels like a new beginning, a second chance, a future that is not built on nightmares and sand slipping through his fingers. Tonight when he dreams he sees his mother and his brother and the rest of the once-thriving village brought to life again in the comfort of the darkness, but he also sees his friends; he sees the sun peeking through the trees of Dainohara Forest Park, he sees Haru throwing flowers in the air at the stirring of flutes and birdsong, he sees Javier laughing as he competes with Otoñal to prove who's the best at missing a target. He watches clouds trail their magic paintbrushes across the sky and feels his heart soar, knowing that even when he wakes, there will be light.


	45. Epilogue

[Haru]

When he finally beats Otoñal after three hours of nonstop gaming, the other boy lends him a desktop and recruits him into his clan guild. Otoñal is much better than Javier at this, Haru acknowledges.

"For someone named after a bird, you're not fast enough," his clone teases him.

"And your name has feathers, _Hanyu-kun_."

The game restarts. "Please, call me Yuzuru." He flexes his fingers, preparing for a long battle ahead.

Haru readies his mouse.

"Okay."

* * *

"Supposedly it's a bad omen to meet someone with the same face and the same name. I'm not going to die, am I?" Yuzuru jokes.

"No," Haru answers, amused by these beliefs about twins and doppelgangers that fall out of place when advanced scientific technology is involved.

"What was it like?"

"What?"

"Flying."

"Like skating but a hundred times better. I wish I could show you." _In_ _ten years or_ so, Haru thinks, if he ever makes it that far. It's a shame no one's mass producing self-operated portable flight appendages these days.

"I guess in the future ordinary people can do that," Yuzuru muses. "Speaking of which, I plan to make my thesis about how technology can be used in skating."

He shows Haru a document full of notes outlining a strategy for deploying artificial intelligence to accurately call jumps. Haru gives him some pointers, and the conversation delves into machine learning, artificial intelligence, robotics.

"You still want to compete even after two Olympic golds?"

"I do. I have goals to complete. As long as my ankle holds up, I can still keep going." Yuzuru's voice is full of conviction. If Haru were in his shoes, he'd certainly choose that path as well.

"Thanks for the Pooh, by the way."

"Did it help?"

"Yes. Very much. And, um, thanks for telling me about Javi."

"You and Javi were both lost. I knew you would be good friends."

Yuzuru thanks him again. "I have a plan," he says. "I want to do a program about you. It's a present."

"A program about me?" How intriguing. What would Yuzuru's interpretation be when they barely know each other? What have Javi and Origin told him, he wonders.

Yuzu meets him before _Fantasy on Ice_ and shows him a pink costume. The cherry blossom motif is reproduced in stunning detail; jellyfish-hued gossamer curl around the arms and flutter in the breeze he conjures when he skates, ethereal, a nod to the shimmering pair of wings Haru once owned. The only difference is the copious amount of glitter.

"What do you think?"

He rubs the fake wings between his thumb and forefinger. The material is soft and light, but durable. "This reminds me of a butterfly."

"Would you prefer bird wings instead? I can have the design altered—"

"No. It's good. It's really good."

"I'll make it my exhibition program next season."

"What about the competition programs?"

The younger boy smugly presses a finger to his lips.

"Secret."

* * *

During the ice show tour, Yuzuru reveals his plan for the upcoming season.

His plan, apparently, is to bounce around the room like a pogo stick.

"One program for Haru. One program for Origin. One for myself. This is our story and we should never forget," he explains when they finally convince him to stop jumping around.

"What about me?" a groggy voice interrupts. Javi's teasing, of course, but Haru thinks it's only fitting for him to get some kind of tribute.

"Three turns into Quad Salchow is for Javi."

"Aww, thanks."

* * *

Rain pours like an angry firehose on his way to the airport. He leans back for a glimpse of Sendai through the water, keeping his thumb pressed between the pages of the book he's reading. It's an age-old tale about a boy with wings not of his own, who reached for the sun with greedy fingers and shot down from the sky and plummeted into the ocean.

Icarus drowned, the story says, because he hoped for too much and couldn't take no for an answer.

But maybe, in another story, Icarus _swam_.

In that story, there was a boy who feared being unwanted, who owned the sky but no one's heart, who sacrificed his wings for a wild chance at freedom. He gave up everything he had, but in the end he found his greatest treasures.

Haru puts the book down with a smirk.

If this is how it feels to have a family, to be free, to belong, then he has no regrets.

* * *

* * *

* * *

[Javi]

The quad battles of Fantasy on Ice are fun as ever, and Javi mourns for but a second that he is too old to pull off those stunts anymore.

Origin promises he'll come over when the tour wraps up, exciting Javi with the prospect of sharing the sights and scenery of his homeland the way Origin toured him around the island. He makes a list of destinations they could visit within two weeks. Origin deserves a sampling of all of Spain's famous culinary delights, from _tortilla_ _Española_ to _gambos al ajillo_ with _croquetas_ for desert and—

"This afternoon."

_Huh?_

Javi spins around to face the source of the voice, and gasps at what— _who_ he finds.

"I said," the intruder/burglar/stranger/visitor repeats, "there's an eighty percent chance of a rainshower this afternoon."

"H-haru? How'd you get in here?"

Haru dismisses his sputtering with a wave of his fork. A platter of _tarta_ _de_ _queso_ is in his other hand, and Javi wonders what else the boy stole from his refrigerator.

"The island was noisy after Origin left," he says nonchalantly. "Everyday there was too much fighting and too many guns. I didn't like it there. But _Yuzuru's_ huge fanclub wasn't fun either. They all wanted pictures. The plane ride was quieter."

_Plane ride?_

Javi rolls his eyes. Of course, the whole _I-can-disappear-at-will_ thing, why didn't he think about that?

He notes the mess on the dining table, the mess on the carpet, the mess practically from corner to corner. He reaches for the sock dangling over the edge of the mattress, feeling a bit self-conscious. Meeting Haru again was not supposed to be this… _cluttered_.

Haru stands perfectly still, scanning the haphazard evidences of Javi's existence with his hands resting limply at his sides. _Unimpressed_. Javi boomerangs out of his chair and makes a beeline for the nearest window. He pushes it open, letting the mild stink of city air replenish the staleness of the living room.

"It's not so quiet here either."

"It's a nice apartment."

"Uh, thank you, I guess?"

"Lots of space. Two floors."

"Better than the last one," he agrees. "Although, I have to admit, I kinda missed the sight of stray cats poking through the garbage."

Haru seems to consider this. "Do you have a gun?"

"No."

"Okay. I'll stay in that room."

And just like that he finds himself with a new housemate. Haru immediately orders a family of life-sized plushies, tosses the meaningless paraphernalia scattered around into the laundry basket, invites himself to the kitchen, and shows Javi how _not_ to cook.

* * *

"Rule Number One!" Javi's voice booms stiffly, like a general addressing his troops except the combatants-in-training happen to be two boys lounging on the sofa. "English only when I'm around. I don't want to have to use Google Translate to make sure you're not scheming anything dangerous when you're here. Besides, it gives Yuushuu the chance to practice."

"Okay." Origin sits up straighter.

"Okay!" Haru's face scrunches.

And something happens to the washing machine.

" _Ay caramba!_ " he exclaims, because _why_ _oh_ _why_ did this have to happen right now—

From the corner of his eye, he sees Haru's split-second mischievous wink.

* * *

"We're eating at McDonalds," Haru announces happily one morning. "Javi's treat."

"What is _Mac-dowals_?"

" _We_ _are?_ "

"Yup," Haru grins broadly, ignoring the one person in the room who happens to own the only credit card they can use. "Didn't you know? Javi's rich!"

Javi stifles a longsuffering groan.

* * *

When Javi wakes up from his customary mid-afternoon nap, all the pillows and blankets in the house are missing.

"This," Haru's voice drifts from his spot above the stairs, "is the best pillow fort ever!"

Origin pops into view and shoves a bundle of ripped curtain fabric at him and politely requests for a spool of plain white thread.

* * *

"So, er, if everything works out at Europeans and _Revolution on Ice_ doesn't leave me in stitches, I get to be at Worlds with Yuzu." He casts a skittery glance toward the kitchen, " _Yuushuu_ , _Yutsu!_ "

"Javi, is something wrong?" Brian's voice comes muffled and scratchy through the malfunctioning laptop speakers. "You called Yuzu's name three times."

"No it's fine. I'm fine. Everything's fine," he assures his old coach, grimacing when he hears shouts of _"I'll be the best chef in the world!"_ and _"You are most terribly terrible cook!"_ right as the smoke alarm goes off.

They tell Brian the truth later. _Much, much_ later.

* * *

"Well, who do you think sings better— Yuzu or Yuushuu?"

"Me, of course!" declares Haru.

Origin dumps a packet of chili powder in the ramen-loving boy's soup.

* * *

"Javier?"

"Yes?"

"Why there snow in oven?"

"Huh? What do you mean why is there snow in the— _Haruuu!_ "

* * *

"There in bedroom is angry ghost," Origin shudders over breakfast.

Haru promptly turns off the vacuum cleaner.

* * *

Javi soon finds that Origin loves the scent of lavender air freshener.

He hates the taste, though.

* * *

"Javi!"

"No."

"Javi has gray hair!"

"No."

"Look! It's really gray!"

"For the last time, no! Ouuuch!"

He looks to his right and sees Origin studying a freshly plucked strand of wavy hair, apron slung over his neck, and his right arm sporting a dab of oyster sauce.

"Small part is white," he announces.

"See? Told you so! Now can we have ramen cake for supper?"

"…no."

* * *

It's official: Origin hates his cat.

 _The feeling is mutual,_ Effie hisses.

"She's so cute," Haru says as he fills her dish with tuna.

Origin snarls.

Effie growls back.

* * *

"This is a wolf?" asks Origin.

Haru reads the description at the bottom of the tab. "No, that's a coyote."

"But this one a fox."

"Right, and the one on the left is a jackal… the next one's a dingo… the other one's not even related. It's a hyena."

Haru points to the TV. "And this?"

"That's an anime _dog_."

"But it have poison. Dog don't have poison!"

"That's because it's an anime! Anime dogs can have special powers!"

"Why its eyes are red?"

"Because it's an anime."

"And why so very very big? Even _Inugami_ _youkai_ not that big!"

"Because!"

"And if that be _Tiangou_ _youkai,_ why color white?"

"Can't you just enjoy the show?"

That successfully shuts him up for a few minutes, giving Javi the peace he needs to finish this draft.

Unfortunately, truces don't last forever.

"Why anime dog can use magic sword?"

Javi glances up from his worktable and finds the pair bickering over a vintage anime from 2000.

* * *

The table, the couch, the chairs, the countertop and every available surface is covered with folded paper. Flowers, dogs, fish, samurai hats—

But no birds.

"I'm going to be an origami master!" Haru declares. "And Ori will be my assistant!"

That, Javi observes, is Origin's cue to set aside his calligraphy brush and empty the wastebasket again.

* * *

Today was productive but exhausting. Javi comes home from a meeting with the production team, stomach empty and craving lemon pie, only to find the kitchen table decorated with a replica of Empire State Building bearing the Nissin logo.

Javi takes one look at this architectural feat and crosses his arms.

"Figured you'd order a whole month's supply of noodles once you got the chance."

"Nope! It's just enough for one _week_."

* * *

"Yuushuu!" he gapes in stark horror. "Is that _mayonnaise_ all over your hair?"

* * *

"Why need put string lights on trees?" inquires Origin.

"Um, to make them pretty?"

"Why not also put string lights on _people?_ "

"Um."

* * *

" _Come on come on come on come on_ _  
__Come on come on c'm'on c'm'on_

_Come on come on c'm'on c'm'on..."_

"Haru! I swear, that is not how to play an electric guitar!" he scolds the teenager hell-bent on torturing the neighbors with his brand new stereo set and portable amplifier.

That makes Haru pause long enough to ask, "Can you play the guitar, Javi?"

"…no," he admits, and the resulting smirk on Haru's face is hard to miss. "But you still sound terrible. What do you think, Yuushuu?"

"I think _biwa_ or _shamisen_ are more nicer," Origin replies, savoring a bite of vanilla flan.

Haru shrugs. The guitar shrieks again. Origin muffles his ears with a pillow.

Javi swears he hears dogs howling outside.

* * *

The week ends and Origin flies back to Sendai. Haru plans a grand send-off which conspicuously involves a ton of ramen, and he manages to persuade Origin to swallow enough of the stuff to make him sick.

Javi promises that if someone invents a time machine during his lifetime, the very first thing he'll do is demand to speak with the man who invented instant noodles and convince him to put anti-Haru tamper-proof seals on every last package.

* * *

And the season goes on like it always has, the world turns and the skating community turns with it, even with Javi's absence.

He flops at Japan Open.

Yuzu twists his ankle and misses the Grand Prix.

He wins his seventh Europeans and retires.

Yuzu loses Worlds.

Nathan's victory is not as much of a shock as he thought it would be. The new system seems to be driving everyone crazy, and ever since his short program at Europeans, Javi has not been a fan.

 _You're still the champion in my heart,_ he tells Yuzu. _If that counts at all._

 _"_ _Always?"_ asks the boy, who is not a boy anymore, who is still injured and still tired and still reeling from his painful loss.

 _Siempre,_ he promises. It becomes their inside joke.

When they meet again at the ice shows, Javi brings an entourage along. His team has been working hard on those flamenco moves, and his heart swells with pride at the audience's enthusiastic response to their collaboration. The haunting chorus of _Crystal_ _Memories_ rings through the sea of blue ice in another stirring reminder of things lost and found, the two-toned costume for his other exhibition sends the audience squealing at the top of their lungs. But the real highlight of this summer is when Origin performs an encore at Toyama and no one but Javi, Yuzu, Haru, and the few who are aware of their situation ever realizes who he is.

"You need to rest your leg," Origin insists, and Yuzu pouts and orders a copy of the _Masquerade_ costume.

Haru tosses a few snowflakes at the younger brother to cool him down before the finale.

Altogether, it's a memorable tour. Javi flies back home with his invisible escort in tow and Origin promises to study Spanish dance music this summer when he's not busy trying to learn Vivaldi and Paganini or making sense of his brother's textbooks.

Adjusting to society has not been easy at all, but he's getting there.

Today Javi has scheduled the day off to watch the replay of Worlds 2019 airing this morning. He may not be competing anymore, but he was there at Autumn Classic and he was there at Worlds, and even if he can only relive the thrill of the sport from the distance, on days like this it feels like he never really left.

His phone lights up with a text from Origin. He picks it up, chuckles, and types a reply.

_How was archery practice_

**_OK_ **

_Did Yuzu join you_

**_No. He busy_ **

_Wanna watch the broadcast later_

**_OK_ **

Haru walks in with a bowl of popcorn and hot water for the cup noodles on the table, navigating the mess in his living room with youthful ease. Javi sits up, feels his joints hurt, and grabs a throw pillow to abuse for the next few hours as the new generation of skaters enter the stage. He fidgets on the couch, tingling with excitement, leaning forward when the camera zooms in during the warm up.

"I don't like that costume," Haru speaks over the commentator's boring lines. "It's ugly."

 _I've seen worse,_ Javi thinks. The footage from Saitama pans briefly to a close-up of Yuzu—who is of course, still fake singing like his life depends on it, and the effect is only heightened by the dark shade of his gloves— then back to the group of skaters on the ice.

Javi's phone vibrates. Another text from Origin.

_**Costume most** **ugliest**_

Despite himself, Javi laughs.

"Fashion sense," he snorts, "is one thing you three have in common."

Haru grins and manifests snowflakes on Javi's popcorn, thereby demonstrating the benefits of keeping company with a walking human refrigerator. He grabs his cup noodles and makes a run for the kitchen before Javi can retaliate. With a little time before their favorite skater's turn, Javi chases Haru to the kitchen and doesn't find him because _of course_ Haru would choose to make himself invisible, and with a seething hiss he gives up and stalks back to the living room.

And trips over the pile of junk on the floor.

Haru snickers, perfectly poised on the couch as if nothing unusual happened, except now both throw pillows are missing and Javi is too tired to hunt them down.

 _Just wait till I get my eyes fixed_ , he fumes silently. He returns to his seat and turns up the volume and downs the rest of the popcorn before Haru starts getting any crazy ideas.

Undeterred, Haru finds a ballpen and a sheet of paper and scribbles something down. Javi's eyes trace his movements warily until Haru flips the paper backwards and displays his rough sketch of an eight-pointed star.

"Here, maybe this will help protect you from _accidents_." Haru leans over and drops it on Javi's lap, a peace offering.

"What's this?"

"That's a _kagome_ _mon_. It was used in ancient times to ward off evil. Origin said it was one of the charms used in his old shrine."

"Does it work?"

"I don't know. We're not in a shrine."

"Well then, let's put it to the test, shall we?" Javi grins, popping his knuckles in anticipation. He takes the drawing and presses it to Haru's forehead in mimicry of an exorcism. "Be gone, evil creature!"

Haru blinks, dumbfounded.

Javi waits a few more seconds before peeling it off and tossing it on the center table. "Sorry, but this kagome star thing doesn't work," he declares in mock disappointment. "You're still here."

"I'm not evil!" Haru protests indignantly. He steals the remote in revenge.

Javi chuckles in amusement and checks his phone. There's a new notification. He hasn't replied to the previous one yet.

**_At practice earlier all ten arrows hit target_ **

_Really? That's amazing! Congratulations!_

**_Nyal not good, he always win videogames but never hit real bullseye_ **

_Hey... he's probably just too busy sorting through his earphones to focus on archery practice_

**_He like machine music too much. He don't want to learn real instrument_ **

_Maybe if you keep trying you can convince him_

(▰︶︹︺▰)

_Wow, is that a kaomoji? It's cute_

It takes a while for Origin to reply. Javi shifts his attention back to the TV.

Two skaters to go before Yuzu's turn to thrill the crowd. Even now, months after the fact, he finds himself lost in the hype, in the rise and fall of cheers, in the blinding glow of the ice, in the Pooh-themed banners. He barely notices when his phone pings again.

**_Nyal's fault_ **

And this, Javi decides, finishing the very last morsels of popcorn, crushing a kernel with too much force and sinking a tooth in his lip in the process, is not so bad at all.

His back aches and his knuckles crack a little louder as his body nears the end of its prime and the twins could be plotting world domination for all he cares and this artificial boy will leave someday. But for now, he has this.

"Javi, did you know that according to the Osaka Cupnoodles Museum there are almost 5,500 possible flavor combinations of cup noodles? And did you know that—"

The sudden roar of the audience drowns out Haru's rambling.

"On the ice, representing Japan, Yuzuru Hanyu!"

The banners rise, the crowd yells harder, the boy's face is ready for war, and Javi is holding his breath on the edge of his couch.

"Vamos, Yuzu!" he cheers, out of habit.

Haru waves to the screen with his Pooh bear and Javi's phone vibrates again. The music plays and the world stills and Javi realizes he just ate up all his popcorn.

Haru giggles mischievously.

Javi kicks his shin.

Haru sticks his tongue out.

It seems even in the comfort of retirement, life never wants to give him a break. It never really works that way.

 _But_ _hey,_ he thinks _, it's okay._

_More than okay._

_Very_ _good_.

* * *

* * *

* * *

[Yuzu]

_September 2019…_

_Autumn is the season of memories,_ Jeff said. Like a photo album, and he has none.

Gone were the days of camera film before he knew of its existence. Lost to the years is any tangible proof of his former life, and it feels pointless to grieve a blank picture of who he once was.

It is a tragedy in three acts: the Yuzu who was lost, the Yuzu who was saved, and the Yuzu who is. Right now he is the Yuzu in a simple black t-shirt and jeans who swivels away from his music studio software, pulls off his headphones, and demonstrates hiphop basics to his brother.

Then the doorbell chimes and he hurries downstairs to receive a package and—

"Hanyu Yuushuu? Since when did you start calling yourself _Yuushuu_?"

A shrug. "It's Javier's fault. Blame him."

"It's light," Yuzu notices, jiggling the box gently. "What _is_ this?"

"A gift," his twin replies, already busy tearing at the layers of bubble wrap. Inside is a woven basket containing two twelve-inch-long wood carvings of swans with one broken wing each.

"Yajiri-san sent this. One for me and one for you," explains his twin, lifting the darker-toned one in the reverent cradle of his fingers.

Yuzu runs his thumb across the disfigured stump in place of its left wing. "They're beautiful," is all he can say, grateful to that person he hasn't met, the Black Arrowhead that watched over his brother and set him on the path to his new home.

"Yes," his brother smiles, curt but sincere, like the way Yuzu probably used to know once upon a forgotten past, and will definitely get to know in the future. "They are."

He picks up the other swan and grants it the power of assisted flight.

It hovers back down, intricate notches and wood polish, its feathers so skillfully carved they almost seem real. He leaves it on the table to sing cygnus cadenzas to all with the heart to listen, and takes a detour.

 _Autumn is the season of memories,_ his choreographer once told him, and the irony of his namesake is bittersweet— yet every season is a chance to make new ones.

His eyes gleam with unutterable regret. He will always be missing something, but he will always find something else to fill up the distorted space. Some injuries only heal that way, with a brace or a screw or a metal plate. He will take what he can and love it fiercely.

 _As long as I live,_ he promises _, I will try to be happy._

He checks on the mystical teenager lying in the spare room, sleeping like a fairy, snuggling the very first Pooh Yuzu ever called his own.

 _Thank you_ , he whispers to the unhearing silence, and shuts the door.

And opens another.

* * *

* * *

_Some memories stay lost_

_Some places never come back_

_Some people are gone forever_

_Some dreams are not meant to be_

_But whatever you have now_

_Frail and broken it may seem_

_And whoever chooses to stay_

_However fleeting time may be_

_With life's gift of fading moments_

_Cherish everything._

* * *

* * *

**_Lo sé, no hay verdad que a veces no duela_ _  
_ _Ya sé, hay milagros que uno no espera_  
_El corazón tiene sus razones_ _  
_ _Yo encontré la mía junto a ti_ _  
_ _Y siempre estaré ahí_ **

**_—_ _Rachel Platten ft. Diego Torres_**

**Javi and the Past, the Present, and the Future**

**Art by @VA82482141 on twitter**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yuzu has a new set of programs, so it's time for this fic to end. To anyone who made it this far, thank you for being patient.
> 
> Character Songs:
> 
> Javi: _Go the Distance_
> 
> Otoñal/Yuzu: _Legends Never Die_ by Against the Current
> 
> Origin: _Summer Memories_ by Kamiki Aya
> 
> Haru: _Break_ by Uru
> 
> Also, a lot of songs powered me through this, but the one that sums it up best is _Change the World_ by V6, one of my all-time favorites with a message that really fits these times.
> 
> Thanks for all the generous reviews that were the only thing keeping me going. I can only hope this fic does its title justice.


End file.
